Tuscaloosa Mayor Refutes Northport Council President's Kentuck Claims

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Just hours ahead of a critical Tuscaloosa City Council meeting that will see city officials consider a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Kentuck Art Center, Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox was asked to respond to claims made by one Northport official during a radio interview Monday morning.

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Northport City Council President Jeff Hogg, during an interview with the Steve & D.C. Morning Show on 95.3 The Bear, claimed that an anonymous businessman informed him of a supposed meeting in 2019 where city officials allegedly thought to raise $3 million to bring Kentuck to Tuscaloosa as part of its Elevate Tuscaloosa initiative.

As Patch previously reported, Northport officials have been vocal over what they view as Kentuck Art Center looking to move its longtime arts festival across the river. It also remains unclear what, exactly, the MOU entails before it is considered Tuesday night.

Conversely, Tuscaloosa officials have been mostly silent on the matter, apart from lawmakers like Council President Kip Tyner — a lover of the arts who has been outspoken in his longstanding desire to lure Kentuck to Tuscaloosa.

Still, Maddox took issue with Hogg's claims and said such conversations as characterized in the radio interview never took place.

"In the last several days, we have worked to explore with Kentuck on how to retain the festival in our region for 2024," he said. "The festival is a nationally recognized and time-honored event which is why there are communities who are actively vying for it. The festival is a nationally recognized and time-honored event which is why there are communities who are actively vying for it. Kentuck was never part of the original Elevate plans passed in 2019. The only discussion I’ve had with Kentuck was the future use of the Tuscaloosa Public Library Main Branch, if it were to become vacant."

Maddox then explained that, at the time, Tuscaloosa was hoping to include the library as part of the Saban Discovery Center — a planned education hub for science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM). This idea was ultimately thrown out, with Tuscaloosa, Northport and the county opting instead to fund large-scale renovations for the library's aged main branch.

"As I recall, Kentuck’s interest would have been to utilize the facility for an arts center - It was not regarding the hosting of their festival," he said. "It is important to note that we had other agencies approach the city regarding the existing facility. Since TPL ultimately decided to remain at the current location, there were never any further and/or serious discussions with any agency."

Tuscaloosa Patch reached out to Hogg following the mayor's response, but he declined to comment.

Nevertheless, Northport leaders insist that Kentuck has been eying such a move to Tuscaloosa for quite some time, which comes amid public battles with Northport over everything from annual funding to the festival's location.

For example, talks began to heat up when Hogg decided to remove Kentuck from the city's budget in August when approving outside agency funding as the city tried to secure a five-year funding partnership with Kentuck to ensure the festival would stay in Northport.

Funding for Kentuck was initially cut from $75,000 to $68,000 for the current fiscal year, before the controversy boiled over and saw the Northport Council approve a new one-year funding agreement for Kentuck Art Center, along with a special one-time allocation of $5,000.

Still, as Patch previously reported, Kentuck's Board of Directors has yet to accept the new agreement after it was passed by the Northport City Council last week.

Tuesday night's meeting of the Tuscaloosa City Council is set to begin at 6 p.m.

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