Some blunt advice about home for Next

So let’s see if we have this straight when it comes to the city of Birmingham's effort to find a home for the 501(c)(3) non-profit group Next, which for decades has provided services and programs directed at the senior (50+) population in the city.

Former city manager Tom Markus spent his last year and longer, when he returned to Birmingham, searching for a replacement home for Next, which come 2027 will be losing its space at the Midvale school which the Birmingham School District generously provided for Next because it serves residents of Birmingham and a few neighboring communities, all of which are part of the Birmingham Schools territory.

Markus, and Next Executive Director Cris Braun, individually and together, scoured the Birmingham area for possible commercial space and other possible school space as the new home for the senior non-profit. Finding nothing available, Markus recommended the city purchase the YMCA building at 400 E. Lincoln because the Y was leaving the city. The city paid $2 million for the building. Next anted up a half million to complete the deal. Agreements, approved by the city commission, were executed.

Voters were asked and gladly approved a three-year millage – worth about $3.5 million – to fix up the existing building.

Markus leaves town and an ad hoc committee was formed, but not just to address a new home for Next. Somehow its charge was to address a possible community center. An ad hoc panel decides that a new building would be the preferred route; the YMCA (with no money to contribute) decides they would like to stay. Their decision becomes the controlling factor when deciding space use in the new building, even though the city's agreement with Next provides that 75 of space in the existing building would be for the group.

What started as an effort to incrementally improve the existing building then balloons into an over $30 million project. Thanks to Trump tariffs the cost climbs even higher and the city commission decides the public probably has no appetite for approving a 20-25 year bond pay-off plan and votes 5-2 not to put it on the ballot this year.

Now the city commission is muddling through the question of what the role of the ad hoc committee should be going forward. Really?

Our simplified take is blunt advice – implement the legal agreement the city has with Next. Start now with the process of determining what incremental building improvements will be made first. The YMCA is scheduled to leave next spring. Close down the pool, which was always part of the original plan.

Quit with the talk of further debating alternatives for the existing building. You have done that already for two years. Nothing has changed. Everyone (both commissioners and familiar speakers at meetings) should quit dispensing misinformation about the ability of Next to handle the cost of its new home. The false attacks on Next have gotten old.

Live up to the legal agreements (actionable by Next or voters). This is what the city sold to residents who approved millage for an incremental approach to cleaning up the existing building.

Let Next start working to take possession of its new home. Now.