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State Sen. Chris Elliott - Jeff Poor Show - Friday 7-12-24
Caught in on the roadside cotton in the ditch We all picked the cotton, but we never got rich Daddy was a veteran a southern Democrat They ought to get a rich mandible like that singing Songs on the south Sweet potato pie and I should mile mile Don't know where the wind ain't nobody looking back again Welcome back to the Jeff Moore shoulder if I talk 106-5 34 minutes after the hour on this Friday morning text line 2513430106 real quick We didn't do this in the last segment but our programming note on Monday We'll have a state representative shade stringer and Dale Jackson and a guest to be named later So figure that out and in do time always Twitter dot com back So let's Jeff underscore poor stuff at eight o'clock hour. I was really today, but I try to post A guest list joining us now because every Friday our returning champion state senator Chris Elliott senator. Good morning. Are you I? Am doing well. It's been a busy weekend with a good ending. It seems like yeah I mean, I I didn't see it come in, but I knew something was coming, but I didn't see $550 million coming I guess Yeah, I'm in the same boat issue. I mean my conversations with how about even up to yesterday indicated that they were expecting a bridge improvement program grant decision Soon, I think it was probably just officially, you know blessed this morning But I think they kind of they've been knowing for a while that it's coming But but to your point the amount is huge $150 million is a a giant building block of the capital stack that will be necessary to to build this project and and the amount you know compared to other amounts awarded around the you know around the the country are just staggering and so a good win for our Congressional delegation the master appropriator Katie Britt for sure and and for governor Ivey and the team at Albot they have Learned over the years how to interface with and work with us do t talk with us do t and their efforts of late Have born much more fruit than their you know their efforts from ten years ago And and you know the challenge now is you've got five hundred and fifty million dollars You got to figure out how to do the rest of it so that you don't squander this opportunity So the the real work starts now. Well does this kind of start things moving things back now? Jack Burrell in our 1819 news story on this it looks like Sexual will start again restart next year. I mean, this is what it looks like to me You just kind of piece milling together what you can just to keep the ball moving, right? Well, you do have to keep the ball moving and and I I would have been hesitant to say construction will start next year You know, I understand everybody's anxious, but you just you got to realize even Albot is saying this is a three and a half billion Dollar project and while you've got you know five hundred and fifty million dollars in hand There's still a lot of pieces that have to fall into place and and now really have to fall into place to make that work And so, you know, those other pieces from the toll revenue study from the Kiffy alone and approval process There's still a mega grant request sitting out there There may be a supplemental and for grant request sitting out there and then of course the state Is going to have to make up the balance the shortfall on any of that? You know the number they continue to espouse is two hundred fifty million dollars but that number is going to have to be whatever the gap is and and so There there are still huge pieces of this that need to fall into place in order to make all of this happen but But to say anything other than this is a jack step in the right direction is would just be wrong This is this is a good day. It's a good day for for coastal, Alabama There's just a lot of work left to do. Well, it looks like like back of a napkin kind of tally here You got what a grand total of six hundred fifty million dollars in federal grant money Why do we expect did they can borrow from the toll revenue expectations? Any other revenue sources like like what what do you think the tally is it that is realistic? Right now that the state can count on so as long as the toll revenue study based on the lower tolls that have been agreed to by the metropolitan planning organization Justify it right as long as the revenue study justifies it you can borrow up to forty nine percent of the project cost You know against that that future revenue through a program called tibia So round numbers that's one point seven five billion of the total project cost, okay? And and so you start, you know adding this up and you've got now you got this This just five to a half or five hundred and fifty million and you start adding that back back into there, okay? You know here. We are two point three billion you get you get in you get in there You're still a billion two billion three Assuming that three point five is a good number short And so you're really dependent on the balance of those federal grant programs from the government the federal government It just gave you five hundred and fifty million dollars and one of the largest awards ever in the program's history you're still needing some more from them or the states got to make up the difference and Those are big numbers for the state and their big numbers, you know with without federal money, but they may be doable It's just it's going to eat up a lot of a lot of state resources in order to make that happen We'll also feel like the clock is ticking here senator. I mean every day you wait longer. The price goes up. Oh, we're just in this Confederate inflationary environment that you got to get moving on this thing or that tag You know what used to be? 800 million well now it's you know two or three billion and then doesn't keep going up the longer we We stall on this so like the expediency here's kind of seems like to me to be an issue But you're exactly right. I mean if anything history's proven, you know that this this project continues to get exponentially more expensive the more time we we spend on it and so you know Time is of the essence plus there's gonna be a clock on you know on the expenditure of this five hundred and fifty million dollars Money, I mean it's it's gonna have to be spent typically at the three-year clock or so. I know with him for grant It was it was a big deal to get the project back on the step so that that money didn't go away But it's reasonable to assume that the same Pressure is going to be on this Five hundred and fifty million dollars to get get obligated is the key word there to get it obligated to make sure that you are able to Expand that money and that's gonna mean all these other pieces and parts are gonna have to to get into place But that expediency may work out in our favor and that we're moving ahead and and we're not seeing this thing continue to creep up the price What do you think a realistic expectation is for even more money from the federal government? I mean like We're up to six hundred and fifty million now or so. Well, what how much more can you go back to that? Well Well, there are different federal grant programs out there still in for others still mega and those applications are in and how about some a really good job Working again with the feds here here recently And in particular, you know particularly our congressional delegation like Jerry Carl from this area I mean, you know He and I spilled some of the same blood in the same mud when we were both County Commissioners working on this early on and He he deserves a lot of a credit of making all of that work and and so our our congressional delegation on the how side You know led by Jerry Carl and again Katie Britt and and senator Tuberville will be So very important to make sure that this continues to you know We continue to get additional federal money because we need it, you know, Alabama is not a wealthy state This is the biggest project that Alabama has ever contemplated and it will eat up a huge amount of state resources Any additional help the feds can give will will mean that we can still do other projects in other part of the state, too Jordan by state senator Chris Elliot here on the program I guess the other question I would have any time the federal government Puts money into one of your projects. I mean there are strings attached or stipulations I mean we're gonna have to have a walking trail next to the bridge. I mean like what a bicycle path Some kind of solar panels on the bridge. I mean like they do all this and this has always been the problem will take it federal money What do you think those strings attached are? Oh? They're the biggest string that is attached to this project is the elevation of the Bayway I mean, that's what that's what made this thing double in price was the requirement from USDOT that we Devolish and rebuild the existing Bayway and all the other stuff is Stuff we shake our head at right the lighting and the you know pathways and all that But the thing that really ballooned this this cost was the elevation of the Bayway, and so There are a lot of those those strings attached, but it is also, you know a federal interstate and and so with With that comes a little and awful lot of federal requirements and hoops you just have to jump through but again I'll I will say that a lot and our congressional delegation has done a heck of a job Working with USDOT to say guys here's where we are Can we work together on this as opposed to just hey? We put in an application and look to what happens? And explaining those concerns and working through that so they've Turned a page from where we worked in years ago to where we are now It's it's working a whole lot better. It's almost a team effort to get this done Where it really wasn't ten years ago any other thing there's any way to get around that elevated Bayway requirement What we were talking about like you know 100 year flood and you still have a lot of Extra room to give I mean, what do you what do you think of? Do you see me done there? You know, that's a that's a really good question in order to do that That's part of the record of decision for the environmental impact statement, and it's it's set in stone you can you can go back in and and Update that environmental document, but that takes time energy money, you know, all of you know, it costs time more than anything else We may have to do that if we can't get to the point where we can cobble together the rest of the money to be able to make This go as it is now, but this grant award of this magnitude again the second largest in the in the country Really makes you say okay, we need to stick with the plans We've got and see if we can cobble together the rest of the rest of the funding You you probably put it risk this grant and other funding if you if you kick the can down the road and open the EIS back up I would not do that unless you absolutely had to or unless you just simply couldn't put the rest of the money together and You know, just Anything else there the the cost prohibition the elevation of the bridge itself Something Katie Britta mentioned that was kind of interesting and I think It was probably a big real one of the reasons to get this done You no longer have the hazardous cargo going through Africa town there across the Cockford Bridge Now I can just go straight through it this bridge is completed Well, that's that's certainly a factor and and that helps not not just from the hazardous cargo standpoint But you know sales our characters in general and everybody else is just you know trying to get from point A to point B You know the shortest distances is always a straight line But I think that again revisiting any of your design parameters Yes, you can figure out how to afford this project. We're using significant federal resources You know go for it. Could we do it more efficiently, you know, probably could without without federal guidelines? Yeah, always, you know Commission, you know if you did have to you save money It was easier if you didn't have to use federal money to project was easier of course But at the at the end of the day if you've got this type of federal investment that this is big It is this big if with the IF it's approved it with the record system that's approved Use the federal money and cobble together the rest of it to make it work Failure is not an option here. You have to make it work so that you can utilize this money Last question you're and I asked this all the time when we talk about this but like now that we're further along We're like five years down the road from where we were during the 2019 debacle like Let's see like every 50 years or so We got to revisit how to get across the mobile bay Is this bridge gonna be built? It is it gonna be I mean if I like it's kind of like not be obsolete with it's finally done Yeah, I think I think this is a project We'll be looking back on well over 50 years from now and and that it'll you know It'll be here and still be still be serviceable Maintaining the tunnels continuing to have them as options still utilizing the Cochrane bridge etc is a big deal As well, and so yeah, this is a this is a hundred year project. It's not a 50 year project And it'll it'll likely last that long especially, you know with the Bayway Improvements they'll they'll last for a long time and this is huge for the city of Mobile. You know, it's it's not my district But it's it's hard to understate How big this is for their investment in downtown that specifically the airport at Berkeley the Berkeley airport doesn't work without this bridge So having this bridge makes makes a huge difference to them and the investment. They're making there. Well, it's just this it's From a capacity standpoint. It's it's going to be I I mean, I don't know what the traffic studies say and I know ball accounties grow in it I don't even know that if you would think of ballwood County as a bedroom community of Mobile even a hundred years from now if it's not doing its own thing like a Hoover Birmingham sort of situation But I mean this is going to you think going to be good enough to service whatever the traffic projections are long after you and I are gone I Do I think I think again with the existing infrastructure on the calls way the This bridge the tunnels Yes, I think that with the growth this will continue to be sufficient for most most of our lifetimes and There are a few infrastructure projects that I feel comfortable saying that about but I I do with this one It is it is it's a lot of projects again the biggest project. How about has ever contemplated and so you know again big big win for the governor big win for our congressional delegation big win for Jerry Carl And it's got to be I hate that he's leaving us it's got to be a sweet note for him to leave on that to be able to secure something like that so Congrats all involved sir. Thanks for making time for us. We got to leave it there, but we'll talk again next week Thanks so much. They said it or Chris Elliott. We got to get a break here be right back. This is a fifth talk What oh six five Oh Minor let me think for your time you were the 40-hour week for living just to send it on down the line ♪ This is for the one who drives the big win ♪