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Video: Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin And Robert Dickerson, Jr. Highlight The Importance Of GROWTH by NCRC At The Just Economy Conference

NCRC Just Economy Conference 2023 —  Recorded March 29, 2023

Mayor Woodfin and Robert Dickerson, Jr. highlighted the importance of GROWTH by NCRC in building a just economy that benefits all residents of Birmingham, Alabama.

Speakers: Randall Woodfin, Mayor of Birminghan, AL; Robert Dickerson, Jr., Executive Director, Birmingham Business Resource Center

Transcript:

NCRC video transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. They are lightly edited for style and clarity.

 

ROBERT DICKERSON: Good morning. All right, you can do a little better than the Good morning. All right, we’ll–

 

RANDALL WOODFIN: This is a lot of people!

 

DICKERSON: A lot of people out there in the crowd filled up. So I know I don’t want to be too redundant. But if you’re from Birmingham, let’s give it up for Mayor Woodfin. That’s right. That’s right. So we got we got a lot of folks out here,

 

WOODFIN: I see a large contingency of people. But Sam, beautiful people out here.

 

DICKERSON: Good to see you, sir. Early in the morning. So it, you know, introduced you and, you know, I’m not gonna reintroduce you. But I do want to say this. And I think that all of the folks in Birmingham are gonna agree. This is what I admire about you. In addition of what I saw on your resume, and you being mayor, you are honest, and authentic. And I think that that’s important. It’s important and a person is certainly important in a mirror. And I think all of your colleagues and other elected officials are going to agree that that’s the quality that really makes us love you respect you and follow you as mayor,

 

WOODFIN: Bob, I, I appreciate that. I will say this one. Good morning to everybody. It’s good to be here at the NCRC conference. Two shout out who has already been giving to the Birmingham City Council and Birmingham team. But I do want to acknowledge my president or Dean Alexander and my pro tem, Crystal Smotherman. And all of their colleagues, but there is one of them who has a very special day today. Everybody, please help me wish Carol Clark Birmingham City Councilor Happy Birthday,

 

DICKERSON: Hey.

 

WOODFIN: And no, it’s not tomorrow. Yesterday, today is actually her birthday. Oh, no, this conference is important. So I want to start there, I want to I want to acknowledge the entire NCRC team. I want to give a big shout out to Ed Gorman. He was truthful in what he said everybody. His team and my team would grow. They literally meet once a week via phone, some form of a conference. And I think that’s important when you’re doing this type of work. That as a public private partnership, accountability is key. And so one of the ways that you make that accountability work is through consistent and constant communication. So it works.

 

DICKERSON:  It does does. So I want to take us back because I want you to get to know, Randall Woodfin just a little bit better. And first of all, I want to acknowledge that you recently got engaged. Congratulations.

 

WOODFIN: Thank you, Bob.

 

DICKERSON: Congratulations. So your scripture says that when a man finds a wife finds a good thing, and so I support that. That’s right. Amen.

 

WOODFIN: I support that scripture.

 

DICKERSON: Yeah. And just in keeping with the transparency. Here’s a mayor who’s on Facebook. You know, we know about, you know what he cares about. But I did see something that was sort of surprising. Last week. I found out that you put sugar in your grits. You got to tell us about that. All right.

 

WOODFIN: All right. I see Bob is in a good mood everybody. And clearly this is about an to turn into a roast session.

 

DICKERSON: Oh, no, no, no.

 

WOODFIN: Well, before you before you kill me and run me off the stage. Let me explain. I get it on this. I am a fourth generation sugar and grits. My great grandmother live with me and so she was 100 years old everybody. And it didn’t matter if it was oatmeal, rice or grits. She put sugar in all of it. Now know how y’all doing in your house you grew up in what you eat, what’s your grandmama eat? And I meant to say it just like that. Now, I’ll help you out. I do not put sugar in shrimp and grid. So I hope I can meet you there. So don’t kill. Alright, shout out to our salt in salt. I love you as well.

 

DICKERSON: So, you know I’ve had an opportunity to to actually see you interview twice in the last month. Once at the Ag Gaston conference and Phyllis Dickerson who’s actually going to be part of this conference. Did a great job. And then Milo Calhoun at the power of leadership when you were on stage with Martin Luther King the third and and I learned something that I didn’t know and I don’t want to preempt it so but you becoming mayor is not something you decided you wanted to do in 2017. So can you tell us about you know your journey and where it started? And and how it led to you becoming mayor of Birmingham.

 

WOODFIN: And so everybody knows Birmingham is home, through and through. Unfortunate how I grew up how I was raised. For generations in my home and a mother that our house was basically Big Mama house, we took care of everybody. If you got out of prison, that’s where you came. If you were strung out on drugs, that’s where the children came about an adult died and children needed to be taken care of, we brought him in and my mother took care of literally everybody. And so just watching that, over all the years, was my natural disposition is to want to help. Combined with having family live all over the city of Birmingham, I had a unique perspective to spend time literally across the city as a child. So seeing my city as a child, teen as an adult, gave me some motivation to make it want to be better. Now in between in that bridge, bagging groceries as early as 15 years old and my first job, understanding what customer service and helping people meant. Attending a small liberal arts college on the Red Clay Hill called Morehouse College. I think it was there, this intersection of not just academic rigor, but leadership and community service kind of motivated me to say I’m going home to make a difference. So there’s an actual gentleman here, he has to forgive me for not knowing his name.

But before I got miked up, I went outside. And he said, Hey, I recognize you. And he said, Did you go to HBCU? Of course, we connected all of that. But what we really connected on everybody is that we were both in a Ebony Magazine article back in 2002. So 21 years ago. And in this article, we had highlighted student leadership at various HBCUs across the nation. And we all got the same question about what it was we wanted to be what what did we want to do when we grow up? So in his national publication, shout out to me 21 years ago, I actually said, at the age of 21, I wanted to be the mayor of my hometown city, Birmingham, and 15 years later, I became that.

 

You know, this, this audience ranges in age and generation, but I will just say to anybody, including a person like my mom, who at age 50, pursued and got a degree in education, because she always wanted to be a teacher and became a teacher at over 50 years old. It doesn’t matter if you are 50 years of age, and pursue your dream or 21 years of age and say out loud what it is you want to be, I think it’s important to do, what your purpose is, say out loud what you want to do, and then go do it.

 

DICKERSON: That’s powerful. That’s powerful. That deserves that deserves a round of applause.

 

WOODFIN: Thank you.

 

DICKERSON: And so let’s let’s stay here for a moment because being in any elected official, some people would refer to elected officials as politicians. And I don’t think you can escape politics if you’re an elected official. But but then there’s another way to describe people who are elected, and that’s public servants. So could you just kind of break that down? unpack that for us?

 

WOODFIN: Yeah. So for the record, politicians suck. I said, this is recorded. So there it is. Let me let me explain what I mean by that. I think so often people get in positions. And we become selfish or we already selfish in that it just exemplifies itself. We make it about us. We get caught up in the hype. We get caught up in the titles. We get caught up in the quote, power. But at the municipal, local level, it is really about the fundamentals of serving helping people.

 

I can’t speak to the federal state level, because that’s its own monster and it’s a different level. But I do think at the local level, you have a duty when you sign up for position, if you have an elected school board. You’re elected city council your merit. I do think collectively we owe it to the people we serve. To humble ourselves, to eat humble to eat humble pie every day. I want you all to know Humble Pie is good.

I think we owe it to the people we serve to focus on their issues. I think we owe it to them to have a sense of urgency to help them out. And I think when you we have a we have this wording we say putting people first. I think when elected officials public servants actually put the people first then every decision you make Every action you take the words you say, how you move becomes about the people you serve and the job, even if it’s hard. Even if the decision is tough, you make it because you are actually serving and helping people.

 

DICKERSON: So the putting people first is more than your campaign slogan. Yes, the way you govern,

 

WOODFIN: you have to govern that way. I think, in the job of municipal government, you have limited resources. So you start with the resources you have, realize you can’t solve every problem overnight. And you can’t solve every problem at all. And so you, you focus, you have to create priorities. But whatever priority you have, it has to be people-centered, centric and focused. Perfect.

 

DICKERSON: So that I don’t know if you remember the first meeting you and I had after he became mayor. Now I’ve known this young man, we actually were neighbors living in the same loft building back in the mid-2000s. knew he was an attorney knew he was bright, and had no idea you would end up on the school board. And then, you know, go on to be mayor. But the first meeting you and I had after you became mayor, you said to me that you were going to cure blight and build affordable housing in Birmingham. And you’ve begun to do that with GROWTH. So I want you to talk a bit about and he had mentioned it, but I want from your perspective to kind of talk about GROWTH and what GROWTH is doing and how that fits into the overall affordable housing development scheme and scheme was a good word, the scheme that you have for Birmingham,

 

WOODFIN: so you forgive me in advance this will not be a short answer. I start with the personal narrative first, I think it’s important to understand my frame my mind. my mindset around why focus on affordable housing, why focus will revitalization. But I think it’s rooted in my own childhood. I told you all about the house I grew up in. My grandparents lived in public housing. My brother was born, my mother and father lived in public housing. My aunts I had three homes live in three separate public housing sites in Birmingham, I had two uncle’s live in the same public housing site. So if you’re doing the math, that’s at least five different public housing sites just in my family. And I watched my one of my aunts go from public housing to a habitat home in 1998.

I remember that I was a senior in high school, I remember another odd move from public housing to home in Weston. And I remember another aunt moved from Loving Village public housing to Mason City, and the house single family home. And neither my uncle’s never got that opportunity. But I remember how that changed their lives because I saw it in real time. And I know the power of, of what being a homeowner provides a person in pride, the intangible pride perspective of taking care of their property being a homeowner and all that stuff. And so fast forward to being mayor.

 

City of Birmingham, when I became mayor was a city that has gone from 340,000 residents to a little over 200,000. And so you can imagine the amount of blight that was in our city. And so the first term above and everybody, millions of dollars were spent raising houses that were dilapidated, burned out, not livable. And it was thousands of them. Now I’m using taxpayer dollars, everybody, just Just a note using taxpayers dollars to remove blight. Where I believe that money should have been spent on paving streets, removing potholes, sidewalks, lights, city infrastructure, what municipal government is actually responsible for. But if your local government didn’t participate in that blight removal, it would just continue to accelerate at a rate that many of us can imagine. So once you remove blight, now you have what I call snaggletooth neighborhoods. You all can you all get that image, right? house empty lot empty lot house, empty lot home. That’s not acceptable to the residents who still live in that block who still live on that street who still live in a neighborhood. And so I think it was important to now in his second term. Now that we spent a considerable amount of money millions of dollars at the count thanks to the council have approved. We now need to accelerate going vertical with more single family homes. And to be clear, I am all pro-market rate-driven homes and market rate-driven anything. But I think it’s incumbent upon and municipal governments to commit to playing in the affordability conversation. Now we do that in partnership. We have our housing authority partners here that’s led by Dontrell Foster. We have all the partners here our banking partners shout out to all the banks that help with GROWTH and NCRC but GROWTH through in NCRC has been you all such an incredible pivotal partner in making sure the city of Birmingham can turn a vision into something tangible and a reality to give home ownership to everyday Birminghamians and it’s amazing to watch in real-time.

 

DICKERSON: Somebody was clapping we can go ahead and

 

WOODFIN: I don’t know who it was. And also the one clapper we see, we love you.

 

DICKERSON: So so right now. Oak Hil, Pratt That’s Woodline GROWTH. We have three groundbreakings.

 

WOODFIN: We do. We do with the with the with the immediate goal of building 450. We’ve had three groundbreakings near 100 of 100 homes. And this work comes from several pots of money. We have the city of Birmingham general fund. We have something that a lot of cities in this audience have American rescue plan dollars are our pro funds. And then I have some I have a leadership team here that’s led by Dr. Megan Venable Thomas, along with Corey Stallworth as well as Colvin Datura. That leaves our community development team. And they have they are responsible for CDBG funding.

 

So with the combination of our community development block grant dollars, our general fund dollars or opera dollars, what we have committed to is being super, super creative everyone around how to drive down costs. Bob, we all know in this room that construction costs increase during and post the Coronavirus Global Health pandemic. And then when you tag on what’s what interest rates have done, let’s say in 2021, your interest rate was probably 3%. I think in 2023, that interest rate now is anywhere between five and seven. That sounds manageable for that’s that’s not imaginable for a person who wants to be a homeowner, because that cause keeps going up.

 

DICKERSON: You know, that’s something that we are going to talk about, but I want to I want to circle back and just, you know, shine a bright light on 450 affordable homes in a community where we were tearing down houses Yes, for the last 40 years.

 

WOODFIN: Yes.

 

DICKERSON: 100, you know, that are coming out of the ground right now. Many of them already occupied. I mean, I think that’s a great thing. I think that’s a great accomplishment. And you shout it out to the partners that made it happen. Certainly, your partnership with GROWTH is a model that other cities should follow. I think that with that 450 projection, just based on Birmingham, sighs I don’t think there’s another city in the US that can match that kind of productivity on the affordable housing front.

 

WOODFIN: You know, this is what I’ll say to that, Bob, I think and I think I spoke at this conference last year and anytime I get a chance to speak. I’m excited to say that city like Birmingham is a midsize city everyone in the midsize city affords us the opportunity to be small enough to try something literally be creative as you want. And if it is successful, then it’s also large enough for you to be able to scale it to any other community city. And so I think what we have going on in the city of Birmingham through partnership, especially with GROWTH leading, but with our our banking institutions, as well as other local partners, the housing authority, etc. We’re in a position to show America how to get this done in the affordable housing conversation.

 

DICKERSON: and then speaking of your positioning, I want to point out the fact that you have recently been appointed to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta. Affordable Housing Council.

 

WOODFIN: Yes, sir.

 

DICKERSON: I’m not sure that there are other elected officials but certainly your perspective there is going to be important you want to talk a little bit about that.

 

WOODFIN: So the Federal Housing Loan Loan Bank of Atlanta, I’m fortunate to be a member there is one other elected official by the name of My friend, Vi Lyles the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina. Her and I are the only elected officials on this advisory board. But let me tell you all the impact and power of the home loan.

 

Thank you, oh, well, I’m in a room with professionals. So you already know, I’m not going to be the choir today and tell you what you already know, or what you’ve already heard about the loan home loan? Well, my emphasis is on two words, related to my position as a advisory board member, community investment. When we talk about liquidity, and what banks are offering, and what the home loan does, I don’t want anybody to miss the commitment towards community investment. That’s why I’m there. That’s why I want to serve, that’s why I have a seat and with my seat at the table, I am using my platform, I’m using my voice, I’m using my position along with VI, to say that this is the responsibility of banks, and I am not just referring to CRA, right the mandatory things you have to do. And talking about the things you should be voluntarily doing in your community. This is me looking at all the banking institutions in this room. The liquidity is here is on one hand, and we appreciate the work, what you’re offering. But we want you to be intentional about accelerating that offering other opportunities and more opportunities to potential homeowners on the community investment side.

 

DICKERSON: Okay, you know, and really preserving affordability. And, and really preserving and creating more homeownership in our communities, is a challenge. And one of the things that challenges us, we were challenged in the earlier this century with a lot of predatory lending, predatory lending practices, exorbitant interest rates. And that got us in trouble. But we’re also challenged by what I’ve heard called parasitic capital. And that’s the investors that are coming into our communities and by swabs of property, sometimes sight unseen, and only making it available for rent, which is, you know, just not going to help create wealth and create community. So no, but and we’re fighting against that. I know you’re fighting against that, too.

 

WOODFIN: We are just, again, this room has perspective, more so than a lot of people. We all know what happened back in 2008, with that recession, seeing that a lot of people got shy post that as it relates to the on the sales side. And so rent became a thing. But then you right, it became predatory. It became overly aggressive. And now you have swaths of land and opportunity being gobbled up by investors, nobody has are able to identify through these LLCs and all these other organizations that they create. And then they make rent on affordable. So it was one thing for us that we have a conversation about the market and affordability. But in that space, it’s a challenge, particularly as elected officials married Council.

When I know this council very well, a lot of us came in together their first or younger, vibrant, they have a lot of energy. And they have a lot of passion around this conversation. And I’m looking at them right now, of housing in their individual districts. But we’re all facing the same struggle of that form. And so that is a I’ll be honest, that is an uphill battle fight, where it’s hard for government to create policies, and I guess laws around how to solve that. I’m going to be honest, we haven’t solved for that. But we acknowledge it. And we’re trying to fight against it.

Now through our land bank, city of Birmingham is fortunate to have a land bank. We tried to solve for those that type of behavior, where a person wants to buy 150 Land Bank properties, and then just sit on them hoping that things change. And then all of a sudden homes go on these lots, but they’re not affordable. And so that’s one of the ways we solve for that is through our land bank, because we can control that.

 

DICKERSON:  I want to pivot us back to obviously, when we’re talking about affordable houses, to you know, working class families, sometimes they need help in some of that help, and traditionally has come through downpayment assistance, closing cost assistance, and that’s great. But now, you mentioned it earlier. You’ve had you close on a house 24 months ago, then your rate could have been half of what it is today, literally. And and so now when you’re talking about 200 $220,000 house, there is a significant extra edit burden on the purchaser. And in financing at home, that’s a 30 year burden.

Now, we do have, I know one bank in the room that has sought to address this through interest rate buy downs, the ability to use discount points to buy rates down, it’s always been, you know, a product of the in the mortgage space, but not, you know, usually promoted or used a lot. So, I want to talk and get you to talk more about, you know, this idea of how we can make sure that interest rates are still affordable, so we don’t slow consumption and sale and production of houses.

 

WOODFIN: So the first place I’ll pick up where I left off, which is construction calls was handing it to everybody in 21. If you bought a home, and it was the same interest rate was 3%. But let’s say you wanted to build a gate, or fence, let’s say you want to build things, not a gate, you literally couldn’t afford wood or Windows, you wanted to get new windows, it took you what, six, eight months just to get new windows, or if your home was new, or if you wanted to replace so construction costs, literally was like handed to everybody that literally slow construction down. Now you fast forward two years later. And some of those patients construction calls has leveled off, but it still take, it still takes too long to get material. It’s now you’d backed up, then let’s say you actually finish construction. Now interest rate is on an interest rate is really out of hand. And so you all should know most of the time when I’m with it, I listened, I don’t talk. But some of the things I hold on to tells me the huge difference if interest rate is between five and seven. And so interest rate between five and seven as an additional 200 something dollars or money toward a person’s mortgage. over the lifespan of that mortgage. I think he told me that numbers north of $70,000 added on when your interest rate is between five and seven. And so I think it’s important, again that we be creative in this space. How do we drive down interest rates? And I’m not necessarily saying you can get it back down to somewhere between two and four. But what if this will government’s along with a banking institutions set out to first horizon bank? By the way, let me just pause and acknowledge first horizon bank.

 

And if you’re in Israel with Verizon, please stand. Oh, yeah, just raise your hand. And I understand. Oh, thank you.

 

A shout out to the Birmingham team as well. But first Verizon, let me tell you what they’ve done. They’ve been intentional in driving down interest rates, I think is when this government, we have my one clap when we say I told you earlier, we love you too. We have an interest in driving down and rate, if you can just drive that rate down at least two points. That’s a total game changer for a potential homeowner, that knocks off at 200 plus dollars on what that mortgage would be. And so the city of Birmingham, along with GROWTH shout out to Ed Gorman again, we are going to tackle we’re going to own this space, the city of Birmingham looks to be again, another example in the present and future, driving down that interest rate that interest rate costs to make sure we can have more homeowners.

 

DICKERSON: Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for that. I want to pivot to a couple of other things. And then I’ll come back and we’ll talk a bit more about housing before we wrap. But there are two things that you’ve done since being mayor. And I know what is really close to your heart, just the Birmingham promise. And I wouldn’t eat I think that even though it’s not housing and just conversations a lot about housing, I think we would be remiss if we didn’t, you know, get you to talk more about that because our children our future.

 

WOODFIN: So Birmingham promise everybody was an idea from being a school board member, sit on the stage. I guess not as big as this, but similar to this. For at least four years, I’ve done it now six, but having a opportunity. But I don’t think was the most amazing part about the job, or opportunity to shake hands with every single high school graduate of all of our high schools. Every now and then there was a bottleneck on the stage that afforded me the opportunity to simply say to not to a young person, what are you doing next? I think enough of us have been around young people where they look at an adult in their eyes and they say something because they want to please us right now. And then they will inherently walk off the stage, go back into the audience with their classmates turn their tassels, walk out with their families, but not necessarily know what they’re going to do after after high school. So the Birmingham promise was a simple notion of every child I believe when they finish high school should enter the military workforce and college. Now, I don’t care which one they do, but I think it should be one of those. And so the Birmingham promise has an investment in focus on two out of three of those options. Right now, if you are a a senior in high school at Birmingham city schools, you have the opportunity to leave high school early, receive high school credits for working work a minimum of 15,16 hours a week and be paid a livable wage of $15 an hour, which is a game changer. That same high school senior when they graduate now from high school, can attain any two years state two year four year public, State College University free tuition, no cost, no questions, no GPA score, no GPA and SAT ACT scores. This is a this is a genuine public private partnership. The city municipal government shout out to the Council supports the apprenticeship side of the $15 an hour or so I would $10 million. And the tuition scholarships on is 100% raised by the private sector, local business community in Birmingham, so shout to my local business can lower it. But there is something that you need to support this work, which is another gentleman in this room shout out to Isaac Cooper and the Financial Freedom Project. The City of Birmingham, in partnership with Isaac Cooper and his company has created a robust financial literacy curriculum for middle for elementary, middle and high school students in Birmingham City. The point is, no one taught me financial literacy.

I didn’t get it at home, I didn’t get it at school. And now now and at age 41, I understand what financial literacy means. But think about if I would have been taught as a child at home or at school, what the financial freedom project now instills in children, the basics and the fundamentals of finances, from checking, budgeting, savings, everything, the consumer products, etc. These same children will one day be homeowners, these same children will want to have access to capital and credit. They need to know what to do with it. And so all of that’s attached the Birmingham promise and this financial freedom project when you have a city like Birmingham has a minimum of 20% poverty, these two forms of our way of fighting poverty.

 

DICKERSON: It’s good. All right. So so you know, I work in small business, and work with small businesses every day. And one of the other things that your administration has done that I think is really important, is actually started a small business council. And so now small business owners have voice, you know, they have a place in your administration voice. I think that’s important as well, you talk about that.

 

 

WOODFIN: So early. You know, I told y’all about politicians, I won’t repeat it. But I do think often people come into office and all the things they campaigned on. They spend time listening to people and quote telling people where they were going to do and then when they get in, they get into office. They close themselves off. They don’t like criticism, they don’t like outside noise. They don’t like anybody telling them what to do. And so when you close yourself off, you stop listening. And I think it’s important to acknowledge that municipal governments don’t know enough about what small business owners go through what the risk takers, what the entrepreneurs actually do on a daily basis to provide for their customers. And then you got to acknowledge both all the risk takers, entrepreneurs and small businesses, owners in this room. They contribute to your local economy via taxes.

So I think it’s incumbent that this is a mutual relationship. And then my interest is to actually take care of them because I want their businesses in the city limits to provide for their customers are our residents. That being the case we need to listen to them. What are their issues? What are their concerns? The business license process to become a business owners do renewal process, the permitting process, let me be the first to tell you we’re not perfect. But listening to small business owners does put us in a position to strive to be more efficient, as well as effective in how we deliver services and provide services to our small business owners,

 

DICKERSON: I think is really important. And I will say that Birmingham has become more business friendly. And I think that that’s, that’s an opinion that’s shared across, you know, the customers that we have at the BRC, and folks that we talked to and so you have to thank you for doing that.

 

WOODFIN: Yes, sir.

 

DICKERSON:  So, you know, we’re gonna wrap up, but I want to, you know, just turn to you once again. And, you know, she’d think about the landscape of things that you’d like to see happen. And I mentioned this if you if you were putting together a wish list, what would be on your list?

 

WOODFIN: Well, as we close out, before I answer that question, let me again, acknowledge GROWTH NCRC. team on the ground in Birmingham. Now, let me acknowledge, honestly, everybody, big shout out to every single banking institution in this room, thank you for what you’re doing. If you want to do more, please do it. If you’re not doing enough, do more your local communities need. Everything does not have to be about CRA. Sometimes you need to do things. Community Work is hard. Community Work is not for the faint of heart, community. Work takes time. But community work also takes commitment. That commitment is I go back to those two words community investment. What you’re doing is not a handout, what you’re doing is not charity work. We all want returns on what we invest in. Investing in affordable housing pays for itself. So please do more. Give more thank you for you already doing.

 

So wish list one. Banks give more Thank you. Wish List two is any other elected officials in this room? Let’s keep dependent on each other. Let’s keep bouncing best practices off each other.

 

The only competition we should be in is to be better leaders. Wish list three is very simple. We have to continue to find ways to get information to a potential homeowner.

 

We can do more. And last thing I was saying in closing is this. It is incumbent upon us as elected officials and public servants to do this work. And if we don’t do it, nobody else will.

 

DICKERSON:  Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you all. I want to especially thank my mayor Mayor Randall Woodfin.

 

WOODFIN: Thank you.

 

DICKERSON:  Thank you, Jessie and all the team at NCRC. The team in Birmingham all the members of bar. It’s been a great morning and I’m looking forward to the rest of the day. Thank you all so much.

 

WOODFIN: Thank you.

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