Tonight's council agenda, and $417,000 in leftover Riverchase Village drainage money

Last week we walked through the mayor’s proposed 2027 budget line by line (our September 21 post). Tonight is the meeting where the council is scheduled to vote on it. Everything below is on the agenda, which means it is proposed. None of it has been decided as of this morning, and we will not guess at how the votes go (Hoover Sun, September 26, 2026).

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at Hoover City Hall, 100 Municipal Lane (Hoover Sun, September 26, 2026).

The one item with Riverchase in its name

Alongside the 2027 budget, the council is scheduled to consider an amendment to the current 2026 budget. It would do two things (Hoover Sun, September 26, 2026):

• Increase spending for garbage pickup by $725,000, which the city attributes to higher fuel costs
• Reallocate $417,000 left over from the Riverchase Village drainage project to three other drainage projects, on Lester Lane, Chester Street and Glenwood Road

What we could not confirm: how the $417,000 would be divided among the three streets, and the final cost or completion status of the Riverchase Village project itself. The Hoover Sun links the city’s full agenda packet, but we were not able to open that document, so we are relying on the paper’s description rather than the city’s own wording.

Glenwood Road will sound familiar if you read our earlier post. The city put a storm sewer job there out to bid this month (our September 14 post). That bid, 26-013, Glenwood Road Storm Sewer System Improvements, is still listed as open and closes September 30, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. It is the only open bid on the city’s list (City of Hoover, Bids). The bids page carries no publication date; we checked it this week.

What is new on the 2027 budget

The headline numbers have not changed since the proposal was presented: $178 million from the general fund, up 4 percent from the original 2026 general fund budget, and $206 million in total government fund spending, including $10.4 million in capital projects (Hoover Sun, September 26, 2026).

Two details were reported for the first time this week (Hoover Sun, September 26, 2026):

• Part of the cost increase would be offset by eliminating the city’s funding of a health clinic for employees, where the city’s chief financial officer said costs were increasing 50 percent or more
• The city expects to save about $420,000 a year by changing its fee structure for insurance with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama

The proposed 2 percent cost-of-living increase for city employees would come in addition to any step increases for longevity. The fiscal year begins October 1 (Hoover Sun, September 26, 2026).

Sparklers and snakes, but not bottle rockets

The council is also scheduled to consider an ordinance that would allow the sale and use of novelty fireworks and sparklers in Hoover’s city limits under certain conditions (Hoover Sun, September 26, 2026).

• Would be allowed: party poppers, snappers, toy smoke devices, snakes, glow worms, wire sparklers and dipped sticks
• Would still be illegal to sell or use: bottle rockets, firecrackers, reloadable shell devices or Roman candles, aerial devices, audible ground devices, and anything that will detonate or explode

The article does not spell out the “certain conditions,” so we will not list any. If it passes, we will look for the adopted text.

The rest of the agenda

• Rescinding the false burglar alarm ordinance. The city says the ordinance, adopted in 2002, no longer reflects current alarm technology
• Three appointments to the city’s Medical Clinic Board

Both are from the same Hoover Sun preview (Hoover Sun, September 26, 2026). The city’s calendar lists the meeting at the same time and place (City of Hoover, Council meeting calendar entry).

We will report what the council actually adopted once the city or the paper publishes the result.