State Sen. Sam Givhan said he’s received no negative feedback from constituents on the plan to build a new Alabama State House in Montgomery.
The Legislative Council, a joint House-Senate legislative panel which owns the State House, unanimously approved an agreement with the Retirement Systems of Alabama last week to build the new meeting place for the Legislature.
Givhan (R-Huntsville), who chairs the Legislative Council, told Alabama Public Television why the new building is needed.
“I think it’s important to make a good presentation for the state of Alabama and to make the committee rooms accessible,” Givhan said. “There are so many of these committee rooms that the public can’t get in when they really have a concern about what’s going on and they can’t get in the room.
“It’s not right to have a State House where basically the lobbyists know where they’re going and they get here early and get all the seats. This just needs to be the people’s house.”
The lawmaker lamented over the deterioration of the current State House building.
“We haven’t been doing a very good job of maintaining it over the years,” he said. “The deferred maintenance on this building is pushing $100 million as I recall and that’s just not going to get any better. You know you’ve got parts for the elevator, how much longer are they going to make those things? There are a lot of things like HVAC units, are they going to be continued? So it’s time to start a new building.”
Givhan said he’s received nothing but positive reactions from Alabama voters on the issue.
“I’ve not gotten any pushback from constituents on it,” he said. “it’s been pretty well covered from press and I don’t think there’s a pushback against it. I think people want something they can be proud of.”
He also believes RSA can be trusted to do a good job for the state.
“It can’t ever be totally about personalities. RSA is bigger than David Bronner. But the fact remains that I think his track record has proven that he wants things to make a good impression for the state of Alabama,” Givhan said. “And he wants to lift up Alabama as a whole. And I have the confidence that that is exactly what he is going to do.”
The site of the new State House is the parking lot for the current building.
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
