Local Leaders Give State of County, City
All eyes were on education, at Montgomery’s annual state of the city and county address.
Pike Road mayor Gordon Stone was the first to speak at the city and county breakfast Thursday morning — joining Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange and County Commissioner Elton Dean.
“One of our focus points this year is going to be additional construction at our schools:” he said “we want to continue to grow our capacity that we meet the needs that are out there”.
Montgomery mayor Todd Strange, followed Stone, with most of his remarks focused on three areas: “education, infrastructure, quality of life” he said “That’s the way you could sum it up”.
From landing the F-35 project in early 2018 to becoming a “Smart City’ Strange says there’s much to be proud of. Education though is still at the top of the list for improvement he says, with high hopes for a newly elected school board.
“I think though that we are moving in a great direction hopefully accreditation will turn out well” said Strange. MPS is due for another visit from the AdvancED accrediting body this upcoming Summer.
County commission chair Elton Dean, also promised his continued support for MPS on the podium. The county commission has proposed a property tax increase in order to provide MPS with more funding.
“They need more money” he explained “we can not continue to hand out a band aids approach… they need more money for facilities for teachers for extra curricular activities”.
The tax increase will have to go up for a vote first, and right now there’s no word on exactly when that will be.
