By Crystal McGough, Editor
TRUSSVILLE – Mayor Buddy Choat gave his annual State of the City address at the Trussville Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Thursday, Oct. 19.
Mayor Choat presents a check for $60,000 to Chamber of Commerce director David Moore. ((Credit: Crystal McGough)
Topics discussed in the address included Leadership Trussville and the 2040 Plan, new marketing campaigns for the city (including rebranding the downtown area as ‘The Gateway District’), a new elementary school at Glendale Farms and a new softball complex for the high school and middle school.
Choat opened his address by presenting a check from the city in the amount of $60,000 to the Chamber of Commerce.
“The city always supports our chamber; this year is no exception,” he said. “We just appreciate you so much.”
The mayor quickly moved into a review of Trussville’s 2040 plan, including where it has brought the city to currently and the future of where the city wants to go.
“About seven years ago today was the first time I had the opportunity to speak to the Chamber as an incoming mayor in 2016,” Choat said. “I remember part of that day vividly, saying that although I had been on the council for eight years, there were a lot of things that needed to happen in the community moving forward and that there were resources within our community that were untapped – and I meant individuals, like yourselves.
Choat said that he and the council began considering ways to garner as much information and wisdom as possible from the community to determine what direction the city would take in its future.
“It started years ago in 2018-2019, we thought about our 2040 Plan,” he said. “The city was growing and had already grown tremendously.”
The fruition of the 2040 plan would be a recurring theme throughout the mayor’s address, but he moved on at this point to talk about the newly established Leadership Trussville program and how those classes are moving the city forward.
“Our first Leadership Trussville class was last year. This was 30 individuals that were chosen to come in and learn more about our city,” Choat said. “…I think it was very rewarding for those participating.”
There were 85 applicants for the 30 spots in the second Leadership Trussville class, which has already begun.
“I just want to encourage you if you’ve not heard about it, or if you have heard about it, if you want to know more about the city and what’s going on sort of behind the scenes, then I encourage you to put in an application for Leadership Trussville,” Choat said.
Next, the mayor talked about the city’s 2023-2024 budget, which he said is the largest budget the city has ever had, though necessary.
Mayor Choat introduces new Gateway District website trussvillegateway.org (Credit: Crystal McGough)
“The council and our finance department worked extremely hard for our budget this year,” he said. “Looking at the budget this year, it’s very obvious there are some unknowns with the economy … so it took a lot of work, a lot of hours, and we’ve come up with a budget that really is supporting what we need as a city.
“Again, the largest budget we’ve ever had. That’s because things are growing. We’re close to $52 million this year, but that includes a lot of things that we have to get done, none more important than we’re building Fire Station #4. … We budgeted to hire the employees there, we’ve got equipment ordered – some of that equipment has been ordered for almost two years now.”
Other notable items on the budget include two gyms and a new PA system for the Civic Center.
“These are high-ticket items that we felt like we had to have,” Choat said. “We’re crowded for gym space for our youth and adult programs.
“One of the lower costs, but what I think is so important, is on the advice of our Tree Commission … they interviewed a company to come in and look at our historic project area. We have a lot of old trees – 100-year-old trees down there – and, honest to goodness, the hardest thing to do with those trees that are on the right-of-way is to know if those trees are healthy.”
Mayor Choat said the city has hired a professional arborist company out of Birmingham to take a full inventory of all the trees on the right-of-way in the historic project area. The project started today.
“Hopefully they’ll be able to identify some problems that we’re going to address,” he said. “They’re also going to be able to help keep those trees healthy.”
The mayor then moved on to his next topic, which was marketing for the city, particularly the downtown area.
“The city has taken steps towards doing more marketing and advertising for our city,” he said. “We signed a contract with CBS42 to do a lot of local advertising for us. … We know that you all know what all we have here; we have so many people that come in from outside of Trussville to visit. What we wanted to do is let those people that don’t know what we have come shop and eat and dine here in Trussville.”
Choat added that the city of Trussville had also been featured in Business Alabama Magazine.
“They featured Jefferson County and they selected Trussville,” he said. “They did a wonderful job of showing our city. That magazine goes out to thousands of people all over the country; not just Alabama. To be selected to be in that magazine was quite an honor for the city of Trussville.”
On the topic of branding, or re-branding, the city, the mayor made an announcement that the entire downtown area has now officially been named the Gateway District. This does not change the name of the Trussville Entertainment District, he clarified, but rather, the TED will be a part of the Gateway District.
“We started a campaign over a year ago to try to come up with branding for our downtown area. … It just kept coming back to the gateway – the gateway to happy living,” Choat said. “… So, our new campaign is the Gateway District. We’re featuring a lot of businesses, not just in the Entertainment District, but downtown businesses and those businesses around downtown, again so we can show people outside of Trussville the opportunities they have here.”
The mayor encouraged everyone to visit the city’s brand new website, trussvillegateway.org.
A hot topic during the mayor’s address, which many in the community have been eager to hear about, was Glendale Farms, where Mayor Choat confirmed would be the site of a new elementary school. Along with this confirmation, Choat revealed the first conceptual plan for Glendale Farms, which included several other potential features on the property.
“The family that owned that 230 acres out there decided to put that property up for auction … One thing led to the other, so the city was able to acquire 230 acres of the Glendale Farms property out there,” Choat said. “The reason we bought it, as many of you know, is (because of) a need for a fourth elementary school.”
The conceptual plan also shows sites for four multi-purpose fields, potentially for tennis and pickleball courts, as well as a town center area and a technology park.
“Now understand, this is just a conceptual idea; this is not the final idea,” Choat said. “When the elementary school gets there, and potentially we have ball fields and parents and kids coming out there, hopefully we’ll have a little town center; a place to eat or meet.
“Part of the 2040 vision also told us that Trussville was positioned to create infrastructure and sights for the new technology that’s being developed and going on around us today,” he added. “So, with that, the top part up there in the orange is what we’ve laid out as potential sites for technology businesses to come in. We’re not going to be a manufacturing city; just some technology.”
Additionally, Choat said that Jefferson State Community College will use part of the the property to build either a learning facility or a workforce development facility.
“We’re mighty proud to partner with Jefferson State in bringing something like that to Trussville,” he said. “I thank them for having that vision too.
“Everything that you see here, whether it be education, recreation, or industry growth/tech park, all of it is a vision of the 2024 Plan that is written for the city to benefit from.”
The mayor ended his State of the City address by announcing a new softball complex that the city and school system are working together to build on the corner of Husky Parkway and Trussville-Clay Road.
“We know that the high school has been very successful in the last four or five years,” Choat said. “This complex also supports the city in that our girls’ softball programs will have access to it; we can host tournaments there. This is a first-class, state-of-the-art softball facility which will be built on the corner out here. We want to showcase not only the city of Trussville, but our softball program … we want to show the state championships that these young ladies and Coach Burt have won. We want that to send a message to (other) teams who come in.”
Before leaving the podium, Mayor Choat acknowledged and thanked board members, committee members and other volunteers, as well as local corporate leaders and business owners who support the city.
“Thank you for your time,” Choat said. “I hope you’re as excited about the future of Trussville as I am.”
