ADDRESS TO THE MOBILE CITY COUNCIL
and to Mayor Sandy Stimpson
Delivered at the Mobile City
Council Meeting held January 27, 2015
To Mrs. Gregory, President, Mr.
Richardson, Vice-President, City
Council Members and to His Honor, Mayor Stimpson,
Good Morning. I would like to thank City Council for
allowing my neighbors and me to address the Council. We are here to present to the Mobile City
Council and to Mayor Stimpson our petition
from the Airmont Montcliff Neighbor’s
Committee to Keep Montclaire Way Open.
When you watch the film Selma, I would like you to pay
particular attention to the scene in which the marchers are being given bag
lunches. The march began in Selma with
300 people and grew to thousands over the 5 days. Those American citizens who
were marching ten miles each day were hot and tired --but they were not
hungry.
My mother used to say “An army
marches on its stomach.” The marchers
ate two HOT meals every day, and they were given a bag
lunch: a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich, a carton of milk and a piece of fruit.
At 2:30 in the morning for those
five days Mrs. Bernice Morton, rose while it was still dark and led her crew of
church women to prepare two hot meals which were sent by truck to the marchers on
Highway 80, between Selma and Montgomery.
For her contribution to the Civil
Rights Movement, my mother Mrs. Bernice Morton was recognized by the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference with the Drum
Major for Justice Award on April
4, 1989. She was seated on the stage in
Atlanta next to Attorney Morris Dees of
the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is
the attorney who successfully sued the Ku Klux Klan on behalf of the mother of Michael Donald, the last African American
man lynched in Mobile, Alabama.
I was not on the Edmund Pettus Bridge
on Bloody Sunday, but one of my school mates was: Myra Dawson suffered a broken
leg after being trampled by the Sheriff’s horses. She was 11.
I remember how it felt to grow up
in a city divided—sometimes divided by heritage …and sometimes divided by walls
and gates-- but by an 8- foot wooden privacy fences … down the middle of a residential
street?
One day my husband just decided to
turn onto Airmont Drive and look for houses for sale in the neighborhood. We were living at the time on Michigan Ave
and we wanted to live in a neighborhood where our children could ride their
bicycles safely.
We bought our home at 757 Airmont Drive
in 1996. We chose that house in that neighborhood
because it had beautiful tree lined streets; homes manicured lawns, free from
crime: a very safe neighborhood.
We raised our three young Huntes
who are now adults in the Airmont Montcliff neighborhood. They all graduated
from Davidson High School, and they were able to bike, and jog on Montclaire
Way. I taught two of them how to drive
on Montclaire, Montcliff Drive, and they were able to practice turning right at
the Airmont sign at the Azalea Road entrance to our neighborhood.
When our new grandson Owen visits
us here, I want him to be able to walk and ride his bike on Montclaire and
Montcliff Drives in the neighborhood where his father grew up. Of course for a
while we will be pushing his stroller as he was born Thanksgiving week of 2014.
We are fighting this fight to
maintain the integrity of our neighborhood as it existed when we bought our
home, and by Alabama law we are entitled to that neighborhood integrity. We want the neighborhood children to continue
to enjoy the safety of our neighborhood streets--just as ours did. We want the Fonde Elementary School children
to travel the safe streets of our neighborhood as they walk to and from school
each day.
Walking from Azalea Road via
Cottage Hill Road at Airmont Drive can be very dangerous. In fact even driving
at this intersection is dangerous—can even be fatal.
Mayor Stimpson, you
should encourage everyone to drive on
Airmont Drive and Montclaire Way because they would see an example of what
a neighborhood should look like.
We appreciate our neighbors for doing their parts, to keep our
neighborhood attractive and safe… and Mr. Mayor...If you have never driven
though Airmont/Montcliff... you should.
It is a part of your city --the city of Mobile --of which you could be
most proud.
We members of the Airmont Montcliff Neighbors' Committee to Keep Montclaire Way Open (ANC
KMO) would
never think of trying to prevent anyone from driving on any of the
streets of our neighborhood. Regarding
Airmont Drive itself, ours is the only house on Airmont Drive-- this lovely
little one-block long street that serves as one of two entrances to the Airmont
Montcliff Neighborhood. My husband and I
are the only ones who actually live on Airmont Drive.
Let me close by saying to the Mobile
City Council and to Mayor Sandy Stimpson:
I join with all my neighbors who
have come here today to bring one clear loud voice of reason and concern before
this body in opposition to closing
Montclaire Way. It is absolutely not in the public interest
to close Montclaire Way. In fact it is against the law in Alabama to
deprive property owners of reasonable access to their homes. It is against the law in Alabama to vacate—that
is give away to private citizens the public streets of Mobile—unless every abutting property owner agrees. It is the law in Alabama that a
person who buys property that had a designed street plan when they buy the
property, that person has the right under Alabama law to have that street plan
maintained in its integrity as it was when he purchased the property.
We bought our home with two
entrances to our neighborhood: Airmont at Cottage Hill Road and Montcliff Drive
at Azalea Road. Alabama law says—upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court—that we
are entitled to have those access roads to our property maintained as they were
in place when we purchased our home.
This is the right of every property owner – the other 80 (eighty)
families who live in Airmont Montcliff neighborhood.
It is only in the interest of a
select few affluent people who seek to separate and segregate two abutting
neighborhoods that have been and are contiguous. You cannot drive on Montclaire Way and decide
that homes west of 3900 Montclaire Way are somehow substantially different than
homes east of 3900 Montclaire Way.
Those 26 homeowners who live on
Montcliff Drive and Montclaire Way west of 3900 Montclaire Way want to separate
divide a street Montclaire Way in half!
They want to divide by an 8- foot wooden privacy fence--the type
relegated to back yards--one half of Montclaire Way from the other, with the
dividing line being Airmont Drive where it abuts Montclaire Way at 3900
Montclaire Way.
The claim of the 26 -- the members
of the Airmont Homeowners Association (AHOA) is that dividing Montclaire Way
will "cut down on traffic, crimes of opportunity" committed implicitly
by the "non-resident motorists" who drive the public streets Airmont
Drive, Montclaire Way and Montcliff Drives.
First, Airmont Montcliff is one of
the most crime free neighborhoods in Mobile—and not just in Mobile, but
anywhere! There were in 2013 exactly two (2) crimes reported to the police from the 26 homes
covered by the AHOA: one burglary and one theft of property.
There were 39 service calls to the police from the same homes for 2013.
Service calls to the police are not reported as crimes unless there are
actually crimes committed which are then investigated by the police who produce
a report, called by the MPD a Crimes Reported Report.
The service call data which is what
AHOA presented to the City Council as evidence of all the "increased
crime" that vacating Montclaire Way would allegedly solve-- that report
showed 39 calls to MPD. But what were the calls for? Forty percent (40%) of those calls were for
burglar alarms going off for no apparent reason: no crime, no crime reported. Two calls were for hang ups to 911.
NONE of them--none of the 39
service calls were for actual crimes, though one call was for domestic
violence-- but because of the nature of that offense the details are not made a
part of the publicly reported data provided to ANC KMO by Mobile Police
Department (MPD).
It is extremely unlikely that some
neighbor driving through the neighborhood is responsible for that service call
for domestic violence. Possible-- but not very likely, is it?
The other allegation of AHOA is
that there is "cut through traffic" on Montclaire Way and Montcliff
Drive. I am unaware of any definition of "cut through traffic" that
pertains to driving on residential streets in a neighborhood made up of public
streets.
If a person traveling west on
Cottage Hill Road turns right onto Airmont Drive and then turns left onto
Montclaire Way, how does anyone know where that person is going, why they are
going there...and whose business is it anyway?
The driver could be a resident of
Montclaire way or Montcliff Drives. They could be a visitor to a resident. They
could be a service worker, a care-taker, and employee of a resident. Or they
could be driving around looking for homes for sale: there are 3 homes on the
market on those two streets. They could be driving to Azalea Road to reach a
traffic light to be able to travel on safely.
Who knows? Whose business is it?
Do the 26 have any right to know
which Mobile Citizens travel on Montclaire Way and Montcliff Drives and for
what purposes? Clearly given the paucity
of crimes-- two in 2013- they drivers are NOT
IN FACT “casing homes to result in crimes of opportunity” as alleged by AHOA: police Reported Crimes
Report of the MPD does not bear that out. There
is no crime wave on Montclaire
Way and Montcliff Drives. Period.
So now, if there is no crime wave
and no evidence that any one driving on those two streets are committing any
crimes, what other reasons could there be for AHOA objecting to anyone driving
on those two streets? There is the allegation
that the increased traffic-- which is not borne out by the facts--is leading to
increased traffic accidents on Montclaire Way and Montcliff Drive. Where is the
evidence for that?
There is an extremely dangerous
intersection abutting our neighborhood and that is the intersection of Cottage
Hill Road at Airmont Drive. There have been two fatal car crashes
that I personally know of-- one in which my husband and I rendered first
aid to the crash victims on October 26, 2008.
Two cars carrying multiple
passengers collided head on. A toddler
was ejected from the vehicle traveling east on Cottage Hill Road: the child
expired.
The proposed closure of Montclaire
Way would not in any way
address that dangerous intersection-- unless it would make it even more
dangerous. For the 80
families who live east of Airmont at Montclaire Way to be deprived of use of
Azalea Road via Montclaire Way, would mean they would be using Airmont at
Cottage Hill Road to exit our neighborhood. That would INCREASE the congestion at that already busy intersection.
The proposed, planned, and voted
on closure of Montclaire Way would have consequences for pedestrians
too. First, the 8-foot wooden privacy fence to be erected in the middle of
Montclaire Way at Airmont Drive would
prevent pedestrians from walking from Montclaire Way, Sherringham Drive, and
Airmont Drives from our homes to the Azalea Road entrance of our neighborhood.
My husband and I walk for fitness and from our
home to Azalea Road sign that reads Airmont and back is one mile. Many other
neighbors walk for health, or walk their dogs, or push their kids in strollers
or jog that route. These three
streets very safe residential streets on which to walk.
Why? No traffic. Seeing one car is
typical, seeing two cars is unusual-- if one saw three cars on a stroll along
those two streets there must be a parade.
The children who attend Fonde
Elementary School and live on Sherringham Drive, Montclaire Way, Marcus,
Markham, and other streets east of Airmont Drive at Montclaire Way walk to
school on these two streets: Montclaire Way and Montcliff Drive. They access
Azalea Road and walk the half a block to the light at Cottage Hill and Azalea
where the school crossing guard sees them safely across Azalea Road.
If the voted on closure of Montclaire Way occurs those children 5th grade
and under would not be able to walk the safe residential streets with minimal
vehicular traffic of Montclaire Way and Montcliff Drive. No, they would be forced to instead travel the one block from
Azalea at Cottage Hill Road down the narrow
uneven sloping shoulder of Cottage Hill Road from Azalea Road to Airmont Drive,
where they would have to navigate that deadly intersection in order to
reach Montclaire Way east of the planned closure at Airmont Drive in order to
continue to walk home.
Would you want your 5th grade or younger child to walk even the one
block along Cottage Hill Road? Would
you want any child to walk along a major thoroughfare where cars
legally travel at 40 miles an hour? Would you yourself want to walk
an uneven sloping narrow shoulder inches from cars traveling at a high rate of
speed?
To force elementary school children
off safe residential streets with virtually no traffic onto the shoulder of a
major east west "highway"-- could
there be any good reason for such an
action? Could that possibly be in the public
interest in any way?
Would you want that for your
children? Or for that matter should
that be the case for any child in Mobile?
Members of the Mobile City Council, you should not allow it.
Your morality and good common sense and governance demands better for our city.
Thank you.
(Editor's note: This address was delivered by Janice
Morton-Hunte, M.D., on behalf of herself, her husband and the members of ANC
KMO to the Mobile City Council and Mayor Sandy Stimpson January 27, 2015.
Remarks edited and amplified here. Address to the City Council meeting was
limited to five minutes.--Janice Morton-Hunte, M.D.)
Editor’s note: From Wikipedia: Michael
Donald (July 24, 1961 – March 21, 1981) was a young African American man who was murdered by two Ku Klux Klan members in Mobile, Alabama, in 1981. The murder is sometimes referred to as
the last recorded lynching in the United States.[1
Editor's Note: KeepMobileOpen.Com is the Facebook Page of the Airmont Montcliff Neighbors' Committee to Keep Montclaire Way Open. Please visit our page, like us and follow us.
