Five years after the BP oil spill, large portions of Alabama’s Gulf Coast are still rebounding from this environmental and economic disaster. Well, some of them are about to get royally screwed for at least the second time. Almost $2 million that could have been used to help the state recover will instead be used to–wait for it–fix up a second governor’s mansion on the Gulf Coast.
As part of a $20 billion settlement between BP, the federal government and the five states on the Gulf Coast, Alabama will get nearly $1 billion over the next 17 years. Recently, Governor Robert Bentley discovered that there was some money left over from the first installment of that payment. He decided to use it to repair a second governor’s mansion in Gulf Shores, a resort town southeast of Mobile. According to Jennifer Ardis, Bentley’s communications director, it will cost between $1.5 million and $1.8 million to bring the mansion “up to the standard of a governor’s residence.”
The 7,500 square foot mansion was built in 1962, and was used off and on until 1997, when it was heavily damaged by massive flooding from Hurricane Danny. It has sat as a water-damaged hulk for two decades, in part because no governor has been able to find a politically defensible reason to repair it. Bentley owns some property in Gulf Shores and several neighbors complained that the mansion had become an eyesore.
There is so much wrong with this that I don’t know where to start–and it goes well beyond the obvious outrage of a governor using this money to help himself rather than his people. That $1.8 million could have easily been used to help coastal residents who are still reeling from the oil spill, as well as the state’s oyster industry. According to AL.com columnist Cameron Smith, one way this money could have been used would have been to clean up the trash that washes up on Gulf Shores.
It could also have been used to bring more jobs to the area–something that Bentley himself would seemingly have a particular interest in doing. He has vowed to turn down his gubernatorial salary until the state achieves full employment.
So Bentley can’t find the money to improve some of the most basic services in one of Alabama’s busiest resort towns or bring more jobs to the area, but can somehow find $1.8 million to repair what is essentially a giant beach house? I thought that the GOP was the party of limited government and fiscal responsibility.
What makes it even worse is that Bentley openly admits that he’ll only make sporadic visits to the mansion. It will primarily be used by industrial recruiters to fete business executives who are mulling whether to bring projects to the Mobile-Gulf Shores area. Gee, isn’t this the kind of waste and borderline fraud that the GOP has railed against for years? Sure looks like it to me. As if the odor from this misbegotten project wasn’t rank enough, Smith reveals that Bentley had to give up two vacation homes in Gulf Shores as part of his recent divorce. Granted, Bentley has bought a separate piece of property on Fort Morgan for his personal use, but the timing of this still reeks.
Ardis says that if all goes well, the project will be completed in May 2016. But the state will be feeling the pain from this boondoggle for some time to come, given that much of the Gulf is still digging out from the oil spill. You know what to do, folks–especially if you’re from Alabama. Let Bentley have it via this contact form on his official Website, or on Twitter @GovernorBentley.
