FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Mobile County Comissioner Randall Duiett talked about Shoreline restoration project, Bayfront Park and the Driving range - Midday Mobile - Tuesday 6-25-24
There will be no personal nor direct attacks on anyone. And I would ask that you please try to, um, keep down the loud cheering and the clapping. There will be no booing and no unruly behavior with that. This is painful and it will be for a long time. That's right. This man knows what's up. After all, these are a couple of high stepping turkeys. And you know what to say about a high stepper. No step too high for a high stepper. This is midday mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM talk. One oh six five was shot to tough. Yeah. I mean, I think everybody knows that. You know, Sean, uh, he took some licks. He hangs in there. Yeah. What's wrong with the beer? We got, I mean, the deal we got drink pretty good, don't it? Did you hear what I said? So this is a great council. I had no doubt about them. That doesn't suck. If you don't like it, you're bad. Last question. Were you high on drugs? Last question. Kiss my **** and away we go FM talk. One oh six five midday mobile. Glad to have you here on this Tuesday and a quick reminder to get in touch with the show. If you've forgotten, maybe you want to write this down, put in your contacts for maybe today, tomorrow, the weekend, whatever, 56 hours a week of live local shows around here. There's probably a show that you want to text in or call into phone number three, four, three, zero, one, zero, six, three, four, three, zero, one, zero, six. Also, you can use the FM talk one oh six, five app to text us from there or call us from their same number three, four, three, zero, one, zero, six and the talkback feature. You see that microphone icon at the bottom of the whatever they call it. They'll land in page or the front dang page of the of the app. When you get there, if you look in the bottom, there's a icon. Looks like a microphone. If you'll press that, let's your recorded message emails to the show and I can play it back here on the air. All right, so with that being said, we got a lot to do today on the show. Come up in hour number two, April Marie Fogel plus Julian Assange after all this time, making it out. We'll talk about that as well. But as I mentioned yesterday, we'll keep it right here at home and good, good to get this man back in studio Mobile County Commissioner Rantle to it. Joining us district three commissioner. Good to see you. All right, man. Good to see you. Glad glad to be here today. It has been a minute since we've been together here. Yeah, so time to catch up. And this is also a good chance. Again, what I love to do is get folks like you or the sheriff or other people in. If you've got a specific question, you know, your government is as close as the text line here to ask a question to. So it's good to have Rantle do it in studio. So I got to ask you this one for it before they even text in. Let me see if I can phrase it like the texture thing. Hey, I was driving the dolphin island the other day and I saw all this stuff going on on the on the east side of the dolphin island causeway. What the heck is that? So Sean, that's a good question. I get that on Facebook text messages calls and I'm glad to explain it because it's I get it here for the people like, man, what's going on down there? It's a really exciting project that's been underway for quite a while. And and now you're starting to see the construction. Of course, you had the engineering and design. But what we're doing there and it's real interesting because I went back the other day to the University of Alabama's website and they have a link there that you can look at historical aerial photographs of the entire state. And I was looking at Mobile because I'm always telling people that this shoreline restoration project is taking the shoreline back to the 1920s original shoreline. And I really didn't know what that meant until I saw the pictures and we are actually taking the shoreline back out to historical 1920s shoreline. And stuff happens slow enough that you're like, well, I hadn't noticed any change, but it happens and it but it takes something like that to look back and go. And so that's what is that, man? Is it a hundred yards 200? How much are there out at some in some areas? It's about 300 feet or 300 yards. It's anywhere between 100 and 300 yards all the way through there. So y'all think about that from 1920 to now that much of that shoreline gone. And so if you and the whole project is about 3.33 and a half miles long, it starts at Bayfront Park, comes back in and cuts over there right at Jemisin's. And then comes back over and starts on the south side of the Cut-Off Bridge and then goes on down to Cedar Point. So it's 3.3 miles long. And what you see going on there now is basically the dredge, the dirt that you see there is dredged so that these barges could get in and dump the rocks that you see there. Because you just answered like so many people. I thought that was what it was, but I get to go, what are they doing? Why is there a big pile of dirt? Yeah, so the dirt was really because it's so shallow in there. We had to have a 10 foot deep channel to get the barges in. Those barges come down the Mississippi River from Kentucky, those boulders you see out there, breakwaters we call them. They come down, come through the intercoastal, and then come in through the channel we dug out and then they lay those rocks out. It's really neat. You think about those rocks and you see them and the way they're laid out is beautiful. Okay, so if people picture that, somebody riding down there, those rocks are going to be the eastern side. They'll be the eastern side. So everything for the rocks then back towards where it is rocks. Now, sure, that's where we're going to build the land in. That's right. So what'll happen the next phase of that project and it should be starting anytime by the end of July, you'll start seeing field material come in there. And what we have is an agreement with the Corps of Engineers. And as they dredge and deepen and widen the new ship channel, the material that they dredge out of there is what we're going to dump behind those rocks. I'm glad to hear that, Commissioner, because there's been, you know, on Dolphin Island too, the mayor and I have talked about it over the years. This started, gosh, 10, 15 years ago going, hey, why do you, you know, if the stuff you need is right there and the Corps is dredging it, can't you get it? You know, so you've got this worked out where the Corps, they got a dredge, they need to deepen it. They've got to put the stuff somewhere and we happen to need it on the shoreline. It worked out perfectly at that time. It's just for just to give out numbers to show how big. I mean, you're looking at 150,000 tons of rock that we've laid out there. There'll be over 750,000 cubic yards of beneficial use material that have come out of the dredge project. Wow. So that's going to be, I mean, if we look at acreage, I don't know if y'all have estimated 100 acres. 100 acres. So we're recreating 100 acres of shoreline out there. And I sent you some pictures. Yeah, I got them here. We're going to put those up on it. Yeah, we're going to, Leanna, I'm sending these to you right now. We'll get these up. So yeah, y'all be able to see these pictures here of what it. And so July, you said the end of July would be what the fill when they start the fill. So in the next couple of weeks, the breakwaters will be complete and you'll start seeing field material, the end of July. As soon as they start dredging the ship channel, you'll start seeing that material come down south. Okay. And then, okay, so we get the material in there. Now we've got land. Do we just, we let grass grow on it? There'll be title. We're going to try to go back and put back some of the original title streams that are in there. So most of that will be considered coastal or tidal wetlands in there. So we've had some conversation about access. And right now, we really haven't decided. We just, I know there'll be vegetation planted there. And it'll be natural vegetation. But we don't know right now what kind of access will be allowed as far as fishing. And you know, you see people fishing. Why do you think I was going to ask that commissioner? Well, because I know you and I know me. And I know the first thing I'd want to do is go fishing down there. Well, and one thing too, so there's the environmental enhancement with this and taking that shoreline back. But another thing is somebody who travels that road and you as the commissioner for District 3, as you're going to help when we get a H word or even tropical storm or big that would always pile the piece of wood and debris up on the on the road there. They'd say, well, the road dolphin island is closed. If you would say, oh, it's underwater. I said, no, the water's already back out. It's just they got a clear stuff. And the roadway is really just a secondary benefit. I mean, the big benefit is our fishery. Right. As you know, that kind of shoreline with that vegetation that we'll put there, you know, your salt marshes and everything. That's where your shrimp go to breed. That's where your flounder, your redfish, your speckle trout, your blackfish. Oh, it's also going to be good for. Yeah, that was thinking about that. We talked so much on the show about the oysters and trying to get it going back to what it used to be in the oysters. That'll give that kind of tapered effect out there. That's right. To where the oysters beyond that can grow. That's right. And that's the big benefit. The big benefit is the shorelines back. You restore some of the fishery. And then a secondary to me is you're protecting the road. And the only way off and off an island, of course, unless you take a ferry, but the only road off and off an island. So it's a good benefit in many ways. Get questions here from the text line. Greg says along that same shoreline, what's the deal with Bayfront and when will it open as well from someone who passes it every day? So we've talked about Bayfront. What's the timeline? So Bayfront is it's under construction. It's just a cool park y'all if you not been to Bayfront. It is. It's been closed for two years and I'll just go ahead and say I apologize for that. I mean, I hate having the parks closed in Mobile County as much as anyone having four young children, myself, those parks are very beneficial. And I told people all the time that that was a big goal of mine is to get our parks back up to where people can really actually go and enjoy the parks. The county is on that park since 1921. I think this is probably the first time that was updated. The last time it was updated. So and so when you start looking at these projects and what I didn't understand before, I had this government job and what a lot of people don't understand. You run into issues and one of the issues we ran in there was a geotechnical issue. So when we started driving the pylons for the new building, they got down to about 60 feet and they hit it with the with the pile driver and it disappeared. It completely got nobody knows where where the piles went. So we had to move the building over, do some geotechnical work there, which delayed the project a lot. Also funding was a big issue with that park. You know, how are you, how does that get? How does that fund to say comes straight through allocation from the county or? So that that park, the Bayfront Park is mostly funded from BP money or you know, is what I just call it BP money. And so we built a 900 foot long beach, pocket beach out there. That was the first phase of the project. The entire project was supposed to be about nine or I'm sorry, about six million dollars and the beach ended up costing about five. So I had to go back, you know, you hear people talk about bucket ones and bucket twos, BP money. So I had to go back. And of course, Chris Blankenship, he's on that council. So mission or DC and a real. That's right. So, you know, any time you see him around here thinking because he does a lot for our community when it comes to these kinds of things, but that was another issue. But that park now they've started building the building. They're starting to build the road. The playground equipment's been delivered. So the initial reopening date was October, but it's looking like more towards the end of the year because we had about a 60 day delay with that geotechnical issue we had down there. All right, Greg, hopefully that answers that question. I'll get to the stack of questions for Mobile County Commissioner. Rain will do it. We come back right here on Midday Mobile. This is Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 1065. All right, 1221 FM Talk 1065. Midday, but we'll have to have you along on this Tuesday. It's good to have Mobile County Commissioner Randall do it in the studio. Your chance to ask the commissioner. We've got plenty of questions here talking about some of these big projects here. I want to ask you would go to this one here as we start with David said, how much is the shoreline restoration project? How much is it going to cost and what's the benefit? And you mentioned environmental benefit, but how much is that project? It's about right now $27.2 million, and the benefits of what we've already discussed, the environmental benefit, the fishery, the oysters, the shrimp, and also the benefit of, Dauphin Island is a huge economic boost from Mobile County and it keeps the roadway open to Dauphin Island. So that's another huge thing. Okay, I could either pick up my phone that's sitting over here that my personal text or look at the text line and I guarantee you they're going to be questions about boat launches. Commissioner, so what do you got? So right now at the end at the very southern end of the shoreline restoration project, there's a piece of property that we acquired when we got the Cedar Point Pier. And there's I've got about a 60% finish design on a boat ramp there. I was hoping to be able to get 75 parking spots with boat trailers in there, but it's looking more like 50. That sounds to me right across from where the pier is. It's going to be on the on the east side of the road. It'll be on the east side of the road and it's going to be very protected. We'll be able to break water similar to what you see at Little Dauphin Island. Okay. And so it's going to be a very protected boat ramp there. So like Little Billy Good Hole has that like harbor effect. It has the breakwater that you come inside and there's the ramps by that. That's correct. There'll be the similar breakwater. So what you see for the shoreline project and it'll tie right into the end of that. Gotcha. And then we're going to have to do some reclaiming of some land there, build back and then working with DOT. They've been really well to work with helping us with the traffic flow out of the parking lot of Cedar Point and also working with us on that. And so that's about 60% complete. That's being paid for again by Department of Conservation, natural resources, thanks to Scott Bannon and I work close together on pretty much all of my projects in South Mobile County, but Chris Blankenship and the Governor, they've been really champions of that area and trying to revitalize that area down there. And so last year, if you recall, I told you I got $4.5 million from Go Mesa for that boat ramp project. For people who don't go Mesa, that is more of a regular thing. We can get that that's coming in. That's different from the straight BP settlement. Yeah, that's from royalties from the oil, the natural gas rigs off our coast. And the state gets a portion, the county gets a portion. And when the state gets their portion, you're able to put in grants. And so I've put in grant last year and was awarded $4.5 million. And I've put in for an additional two and a half this year. And I'm anticipating and hoping that the Governor and Chris Blankenship will award me that. And that'll give me $7 million for that boat ramp down there. Speaking of this texture saying kind of what you're talking about said, can we just talk about how rare it is for two government agencies to be able to work together for the good of all without all the red tape and regulations stopping it? It's very difficult sometimes. People wouldn't believe. But we've developed a really good relationship and I'm assuming he's going back to talking about DOT. We've really built a really strong relationship with DOT on many projects, these roundabouts that intersect county roads and state highways. So we've built several of those. If you've seen, we're planning some more in the future on state highways that intersect with county roads. Is that the formula? Is that the formula that it has to be as like for a round about this, you have to just have to be a state highway meeting the county. No, so we're putting one at Jeff Hamilton and Johnson right now. That's two county roads and the county's funding that entire project. When you run into one that's a county road that intersects with a state highway, it's usually split depending so like the future plan is to put one at Foul River Road and Dauphinon Parkway because of the numerous accidents and serious infotality accidents we've had there over the years. I feel I got a grant from the governor for that as well from DOT and so they gave me $2 million and I think the project's about $5 million so the county's going to finish funding that. But the project will belong to the state. They will build the roundabout and we just fund the rest over the $2 million. I can tell you, neither of us grew up with roundabouts but they went in over time and you and I live very close to each other, live in the western part of Gabriel County and go in south. I drive through them all the time. I like them. I'm now a fan. When I was a cop, I hated them and I almost cursed Jerry Karl. But you know the more I've been around them and done some studying up on them and as a public safety former in my former life and being in public safety, they're really a lot safer than to do. I don't want to sit at a stoplight commissioner when there's nobody else going the other way. I guess it's the impatience part of it. I hate to sit at a stoplight when there's no other traffic. And that's something good. But the real thing, they're a lot safer than a traditional red light. People run red lights. People run stop signs and roundabout. If you run it, you're probably going to jump over the car on the outside of you, sir. Right. Let's grab a quick call before we get the break here. Let's see. This is Jesse. You're on with commissioner do it. Yes, sir. Commissioner do it. I'm curious. What is what's the deal with the county and the state spending money on Dolphin Island, one rebuilding the beaches, you know, all the projects that we poured into Dolphin Island throughout history, as long as I've been alive. And then every time you turn around, the town of Dolphin Island is deciding, you know what, now we're going to charge the county residents to use these facilities. We're going to charge parking. We want to charge for this and charge for that. Yeah, so the county really doesn't that the beach project you see going down there at the island on the south side there on the east end. The county has no interest in that. We have not financed that. We really do not do any projects. But if you recall, back in the 70s, there was a park and beach board at Dolphin Island. And so that was before it was a town and municipality in a county basically maintained the beaches in the parks at Dolphin Island. Three years ago, right after I got an office, we dissolved that board and gave those assets to the town of Dolphin Island. So we really do not spend a lot of money, particularly on things like beaches and parks. We have no control over what they do there. Nor do we spend any money there. Now, if like this event, they had last week where the that storm was out in the Gulf and he had the northeast wind, blew the sand and the salt water up on the beach. Yeah. So when it was all said and done, we send our equipment down there. Now, but Dolphin Island reimburses us for the use of our equipment and our manpower and fuel. But we're not involved in the beach restoration project down there at the island. Now, the state may be, but the county is not. And so everything we pumped into the island up till three years ago was just lost to the rest of the county. Well, the county, the board really made their own money. We never really, there was not a budget from that park and beach board. Jesse, appreciate the call up against the break. We're coming right back more with Commissioner Do It right here on Midday Mobile. This is Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 1065. By 1235 FM Talk 1065 and Midday Mobile, glad to have you along. On this Tuesday, good to have Mobile County Commissioner Randall Do It in studio and questions here. I want to talk about ramps too. Billy from Fowl River said, "Can you ask Commissioner about the boat launch at the mouth of Fowl River?" So yeah, I'll talk about that. There is a piece of property that the county acquired about two years ago there. If you go down Barnwood, it's a dead end. And there's going to be a boat ramp there eventually. But the funding right now just isn't there with the other projects I have going on. But I went ahead and purchased the property so that we could secure that. It was really timing because Jerry Karl had previously been trying to buy that property for about eight years and the owners didn't want to sell. And I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was able to buy that property. But there will eventually be a boat ramp at the dead end of Barnwood, which is at the mouth of Fowl River Mobile Bay. That's good. Because this is one of these things that I even started thinking about when the city of Mobile was talking about the Bayfront Park thing. And I said, "I guess they were right when they started rolling out." They said, "You know, people inside the city limits don't have access to the water." And I've always grown up, we just go the causeway and launch and do what everybody didn't think about that. If you didn't take a boat or whatever, you know, they wouldn't. And then I started thinking about our county. Like, of course, you just go to Dauphin Island. But if you don't go to Dauphin Island, the whole way down, there's, it was limited. The number of places you could get to. Well, you know, the state has the boat ramp down off of 188, I think, something else to port. And that's a really nice boat ramp. We have, which I was going to talk in a few minutes about memories, of course, we're back open, beautiful park now, new parking lot. And that's at Fowl River. That's in Fowl River. We had a ribbon cutting there back in February, and it's open. And it's not suitable for large boats, but it's suitable for the kind of boats that you'd use on the river or the kind of fishing that you and I enjoy doing, which is in shore fishing. Yeah, if you're going to run out and go trout fishing, Fowl River, not that there are any trout in Fowl River. Nothing to catch there. Alligator. But there is a kayak ramp there as well. I wanted to mention that there's a handicap accessible kayak ramp that we put in at that ramp. So it's really nice. If you haven't been down, check out memory fish camp. It's really nice. And I know this is, you know, we're talking about district three projects, but even thinking about, you know, the eschatopahalo and all that, it's shown that those buckets of BP money and other places that there's been a dedication to use that money to give us more access to the outside that's so great around here. And the Chickasaboo Park River. River Delta Park up in Creole. I call it Dead Lake. The county calls it River Delta. So the old Dead Lake, it's open camping there. They're packed. Chickasaboo is on schedule. I couldn't take it. It's not in my district, so it's hard to say, but it's another park that's been closed a while that we hear about. But again, there's so much goes into these. I mean, when you're talking about a $10 million renovation to a park and up there, you may be talking more than that at Chickasaboo. So a lot of time and effort goes into getting these things closed quickly and open quicker. You know, if you started listening these projects, I guess you could have gone back, you know, 20 years, and that many projects wouldn't have happened over 20 years, and now they're happening. But they are. And I think we're investing just in our parks about $40 million right now. And so but all of our parks will be brand new. I mean, they'll have new playground equipment, new parking lots, new restrooms. And then the other activities that we're adding to the parks like kayaking and canoeing and things of that nature. You know, bike trails. And I also know that there's a disc golf course going in at Chickasaboo Park as well. Okay. Another one that you've talked to me about before, and I'm looking through several text here so we can get all these people's text together. They're asking about the linksman. What's that? Yeah. So that's another exciting that to me is one of my most exciting projects because it's something new that that I come up with. And it's it's the old linksman and we'll soon be announcing a new name. I won't I won't do it here. I'll wait to take commission meeting till we officially do it. But we're changing the name, give it a new look. But that golf course, we're looking at having that that's under construction. If you hadn't been out there, that's a huge undertaking. So the new driving range, which would be on the west side of the train tracks now versus where it used to be. So huge driving range. We're hoping to have the driving range open by September of this year. And at that driving range, hopefully soon after that, we'll have the pickleball courts and the tennis courts open there as well. So the the remainder of the course, the golf course itself is under construction. And it has been now for about three months. And we're hoping to have it open by September of 25. And along with that golf course comes a new park. We're gonna have it's we've already almost completed a 900 foot boardwalk there on Halsmill Creek. Oh, nice. And so you'll out and check out the boardwalk. It's not open to the public, but it will be soon. And that's a place that you can go picnic or you can go fish or trade on the water. And there'll be a parking lot there and eventually some pavilions and playgrounds and a playground there at the golf course. So that's an addition to. But you know, the vision behind this golf course really for me the whole time was for our students here in Mobile County. And you know, they they really do not have a home golf course. They have Magnolia Grove, which costs them a lot of money to play over there. And so when I when I first started looking at this golf course project, it's going to be a public golf course, of course. But also, it benefits our middle and high school kids here. They'll have their own home golf course. I've got it worked out to where there'll be no charge for them on our practice facility and a very minimal charge for them to host their tournaments and things of that nature there. Yeah, back in the time machine way back, y'all, in the 1980s, remember playing some Farsi golf matches at Link's been it was not by it. My scores were not as great on Link's been to say we're on others if I remember correctly. I think it's fast green. I think when I was looking at the plans, I think there's water on 13 or 14 of the 18 holes, but it's a great golf course. And it'll be a great public amenity for the people in Mobile County. You know, the people who live here get the benefit of having that having another public golf course here. When we list these things, it's interesting to think what we didn't have. You kind of get, I'm talking about myself, I can get tunnel vision. You do what you do and you go to the places you go and you do, you know, the kids and the work and the and to think as you lay these things out, how much that's grown. And it is a big deal. It's one of those things I think is, you know, you can't even people say, well, how much does it cost? How much does it return? Some of these things, in my opinion, don't have to return. They break even they're paid for. They're a great thing. They they they return themselves with, you know, we've worked really hard to attract jobs here in Mobile with Airbus and Austin and others. There's there's another shipyard about to build. I think they have a billion dollar contract in Biola battery to build some Coast Guard ships. So all of these are jobs. And when you started looking at jobs and one of the things that I wanted to do when I got elected was make sure that when we're incentivizing companies to come to Mobile, that they're hiring people who live in Mobile. And that's been a big push of mine. Anybody who knows me knows that. And so what you get in return and when you bring these jobs, people are looking, are you going to educate my children? Are you going to entertain my family? And so that's some of the things that I'm trying to catch up with. We had so many jobs, but a lot of the people were living in Baldwin County. And so they're buying houses in Baldwin County. They're buying cars or grocery shopping. They're taking their family out to eat over there. And my hope is that we will attract those people to live closer to their job, closer to Mobile or in Mobile. And that money will be spent here in Mobile. And I mean, at the end of the day, that's what you're hoping is that you attract. And the people who are moving from out of town particularly, but it's also in exchange, the people who already live here getting that. So by the way, let me just throw this in. Speaking of incentives, maybe to, you know, keep people mobile and not do the commute. This coming in from cheese wagging on the text line, the Bayway is shut down eastbound right now. So there's been a crash with injury. So the had the Bayway shut down eastbound. So yeah, that, you know, there's one of the one of the things we can look at too, that, you know, we could talk about the Downtown Mobile River Bridge project, but it's not going to be done anytime soon. People, you know, you and I see the growth coming out our way in West, West, West Mobile. I think people have gotten to the point too. They say, listen, I could live on the eastern shore, but there could be days that I got to sit in my car, my truck for two hours to be able to get to work or go get the kids or something like that. Let me just stay on this side on the West side. And you see that growth out in West Mobile in my district in Southwest Mobile County, there's a lot of growth out there and I think we, the last I checked, there were 1,700 available residential lots and subdivisions, new subdivisions in West Mobile. So that's a lot. Of course, you know, you and I talk about this, not even on air, but the traffic, right? Now, I still think it's going to be way more popular because there's multiple ways to come and go east and west versus going to Baldwin County with one road. But yeah, there's, I mean, the improvements there on Ziegler coming out, that's significant. Didn't get folks out. And so I think you noticed too, it allows a Jordan airport, the improved intersection there. Right. And eventually, you'll have airport will be extended to five lane out to Newman Road. And then one of the projects that's already been funded and pay as you go, pay go, of course, we're waiting on the design and engineering and all that. But Mccottedchill will be five lane all the way out to the new publics there at McFarland. Which, okay, because that's, yeah, there's a, you know, you start squeezing down, squeezing down, squeezing down, and you get there, you can get past the Walmart. And that's right. Yeah. But that that'll be the remainder of the funding for that'll be in the 2026 pay as you go. Okay. So that'll be underway, which of course, you know, that's in the city annex that last year. And so that'll be a project that we'll find that the city will, we'll do. All right. Coming right back. More with Commissioner Do It right here on Midday Mobile. This is Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FMTalk 10065. Right. 1250 FMTalk 10065 at Midday Mobile. It does look like one of those lanes moving eastbound on the Bayway. Thank you, Leanna, for that update. If you ever got updates, you can call those in as well at the three, four, three, zero, one, zero, six, and Leanna Baster of traffic and the L dot cameras will get that information out to everybody else. Continue our conversation with Mobile County Commissioner Randall Do It. Just a couple more on Lynxman here. These questions coming in. Scott said, how's the drainage on the golf course going to be for Lynxman? So it's all the whole golf course is brand new. I mean, you think about a golf course and you think we're just building or renovating the old golf course and we are to a degree, but really we're building a whole new golf course, which includes, if you remember whole 18 and 12 over there, when you had a high tide and a south wind, they would push up onto the fairway. We're building those up. The drainage will be new. The the fairways will be new. The T boxes will be new. The greens will be new. New cart pass, new irrigation and new drainage. So it's a complete completely new golf course and built better to the standards of today than when it was built in the 70s. Yeah, Paul says Mobile needs another good golf course because of the Bayway. And I'll tell you this, just to throw them a plug, I feel like this is a Jerry Pate golf course design, which is a world class. And in my opinion, we have one of the best golf course contractors here at Mid-America Golf at a Kansas City, Missouri. They're doing a fantastic job. Okay. So shout out to them. And by the way, Brad had asked a question. I'll use this as a plug for a podcast because Brad's saying, Hey, this is exactly what I was asking about yesterday, went to Dolphin Island at the weekends, saw the rock wall in the east side being built before you go to the bridge. You know what the purpose is for them. You give the one minute, but the first half of the show, the commissioner talked about that in depth, but that project, if they, and we're going to put stuff up on our Facebook page too. But if they want more information about that, they'll be sure they can call my office at five, seven, four, three thousand, I'll email them whatever information designs. But it's really just a shoreline restoration project that just to repeat so that if he didn't hear, it's going to extend the shoreline back to the 1920 original shoreline and it's beneficial to our fisheries. And a secondary benefit, of course, is protecting the roadway there. But yeah, let me promote. I say promote us. Brad, you can go check out the podcast from this hour ends. We'll post that up and you can go listen to the commissioner in the first half of this hour. Talk about it. Let's talk. We were in Westmobile here. Park wise, what are we looking at? So we're, we're near a completion of Westmobile County Park, of course, over on Lee Roy Stevens Road. We've renovated all the all eight fields there, new fences and the northern, the north fields are open. Of course, that was where they had adult saw coed softball, which will will eventually be a youth league baseball there. And of course, the south side fields, which are completed the fields and fences, but right in the middle of construction, we had that, that straight line windstorm. If you remember a couple months back, it blew a couple of dugouts over. So the reason they're the dugouts over blew them over. So the the dugouts got blown over. There were some 80 mile an hour winds out there, believe it or not. So the whole renovation project would be complete other than we're rebuilding those dugouts now. And soon, the girls have been playing on those northern fields and they'll be moving to the south fields and then we'll be coordinating with Babe Ruth and some others to get a little league baseball. But on the other side of that, the county purchased 23 acres on the east side of that park that goes all the way to Schillinger's Road. So we're eventually looking at putting a road all the way through. So you'll be able to access West Mobile County Park from Schillinger's Road right there at Cottage Hill. Okay, it's trying to picture you'd turn to the, if you go north at Cottage Hill and Schillinger's where that water tower is right past there. It was an old house there. If you've noticed, the house is torn down. We bought that 23 acres and so the road will come through there. But oh, okay. I'm also about 60% complete with a design for a new playground splash pad at that park. And as soon as that design is complete, and it's going to be a dog park and some other things or two. The splash pads, Commissioner, like 10 years ago, I hadn't heard a splash pad. It seems like it's like everybody went splash pads. They are and they're awesome. And so they're awesome. When they were designing mine, I said, I want the biggest and best in Mobile County. So it's going to be the biggest. I think it's over 4000 square feet splash pad. New playground also. Hey, Dalton, are you listening with your kids and you've got younger kids as well. So if people are looking for, because I mean, I never thought about it, but it's like every day somebody says something, something splash pad, something, something. So this is the grand granddaddy of the splash pad. This is going to be the best splash pad in Mobile County, I think. So see, it's going to certainly be the biggest one in Mobile County. Do you ever flex at a commission meeting with the other two commissioners say, well, let me tell you about splash pads in District 3. Well, you know, there, there's a splash pad at Tanner Williams Park. It's really nice. And so it's really not a competition for the three of us. We try to do everything we can for all the citizens of Mobile County. Yeah, it's, but it's good to see the things going on in three and one and two as you're talking about these just access to, you know, what makes us great around here, the water and being outside. And I certainly have friends who go to these other parts and other parts of the county. I'll tell you, Escottaba Hollow. I'm so fired up about that. So when I drive by there, they had never like loose tail run over there once in a while. And then, you know, see what's going on over there. I really like it. I have not gone and use it. I was just on this stop this weekend with a big float trip a little further south. But people who've not done this, had people on that trip this weekend that said, this is amazing. The water is like a lot cooler than the bay in the Gulf right now. So yeah, you can blame the water and actually cool off. And that park from what I've understood, they've had to turn people away because they were over capacity several weekends this summer. So it's, I'm telling you, it's a hot park right now. Yeah, it's a cool place. I mean, I love to do it and all that on the Escottaba. But if you just want to go get your body temperature down, getting that river water. Yeah. And if I've got time, if I have just a minute, I want to plug in the sheriff's office here real quick because it's something that we initiated last year. We worked with the sheriff, Paul Burch and chief Cassidy over there with him to create a park police system. So they're all deputies are all sworn deputies. I think there's four or six deputies in that unit. And their only job is to patrol the Mobile County parks. Good. And so I wanted to do that because if you get way down south in Mobile County or way up north at Creola, you know, you want your family to feel safe. I want people to understand that our parks are safe, that we have sworn deputies patrolling our parks. And you subject to see one every hour, at least coming through every one of our parks in Mobile County now. And that's something we initiated last year. And we're hoping to expand on that in the future to make sure that our parks are the safest in this part of the country. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, because it didn't think about it when I was kind of getting excited about the different parks. But yeah, there's some thing about the olden days and stuff on the causeway. They're cool places, but you're like, man, you know, it won't leave your truck. Yes, I had my truck broken into on a causeway. One time had a bullet. I was at where I worked at a sheriff's office, but had a city shotgun and a bulletproof vest stolen at a boat ramp down there out of my personal vehicle. I feel better forget what they got. And this will get me in trouble. Somebody was that think they got a old fuzz buster out of mind. I used to have a bronco too with the little smokers window there and twice on the causeway in the 80s had that broken out. Matt said, did we touch on chicken spoke park? That's not in your district. But you said it's coming along. It's coming along. I mean, I know it's been closed a while and I really do not know the estimated date for reopening. But then if you go back to like I was telling Brad and listen to the podcast, as commissioner talked about just in district three, let alone the other two districts, they're more. It's really pretty exciting. New parks and things coming out there and all stuff that's going to be new. Yeah, we tried to schedule all these parks at different times to be open, you know, to be closed. And so what ends up happening is you start one park and you think, okay, I'm going to have this park open in a year, then you get a delay and you've already scheduled this other part to close. Now you got two parks closed. And then that one gets delayed and you end up with three parks closed at one time. It's unfortunate and we don't like it. We don't like it. No more than I am. Although I'm the commissioner, I'm a citizen of Mobile County and I enjoy using these parks as much as anybody. So we're trying to get them open back up as quick as possible. I appreciate you coming in. It's not going to be as long next time, right? You come back sooner. I will come back. I'll come back. You just don't ever invite me. Okay, let's listen. Let's quit. You're invited to come back soon. Mobile County Commissioner Randall do it our guest. Come right back. More bid day mobile. [Music]