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By Thomas Reid

Three years ago, when my wife and I moved to Birmingham, we arrived in a city that we knew didn't have a reputation as a great, young place to live in your early 20s. From an outsiders perspective we thought it had an incredibly segregated downtown where young people just didn't go. It had the same reputation as Jackson, Miss., does now, only with a more backwards local government.

Since then the city has taken major steps forward: opening the new ballpark downtown, more young people moving to the area, new great places to eat and drink opening every few weeks, etc. All of this helped create a significant change in the perception of the city from outsiders, and more importantly a confidence boost for those of us living within the city. Because of hard work of several new leaders, Birmingham is quickly becoming a city people brag about to their friends, and the downtown transformation is a big reason why.

Our city is at a vulnerable transition point where a few positive or negative changes can significantly boost or progression or spiral it away. It is equally important that our leaders be careful with the image they portray for themselves and for our city, and that they effectively seize any opportunities for potential growth.

Ride sharing applications like Uber are one of those opportunities that will be discussed by the City Council on Tuesday. This transportation service can either propel Birmingham forward by providing, safe reliable transportation around our city encouraging downtown growth, or it can be over-regulated by our Council deterring their implementation and show that Birmingham prefers to maintain the status quo.

It actually says a lot that Birmingham doesn't have Uber yet. The Chair of the Transportation Committee Kim Rafferty seems to have made it her mission to make it as difficult as possible for Uber to come to Birmingham. She makes claims about safety when it is abundantly clear that Uber is a safer ride and better insured than a taxi-cab and frequently defaults to her "level playing field argument."

She makes the same case for taxi-cab companies against Uber that video store owners make against Netflix. She isn't comfortable with this innovative, new, high-tech idea that could change the system she's been in charge of for some time. The opportunity to bring a fundamental change to Birmingham's broken transportation system has fallen in her lap, and she's holding her nose and pushing it away.

I could go on and on about Councilor Rafferty and her apparent commitment to misusing Birmingham's resources like she did on Tuesday by giving $30,000 to LW Associates. According to its website, the firm's only activity appears to be campaigning (poorly), but are being paid handsomely to consult (but not campaign) for her in her own district. After the website was called out in a Weld article this week, the firm deleted most of its pictures and several unintentionally funny service descriptions.

Suffice it to say, it looks like we are handsomely paying a consulting (not campaigning) firm $30,000 whose website looks like it was designed by a third grader in 1993 and whose prior marketing experience appears to come from holding the Hot-n-Ready sign outside of a Little Caesar's.

What's more, the husband of the president of the other company receiving $30,000 from Councilor Rafferty on Tuesday was convicted of taking a Mercedes in exchange for the use of public funds in his time as an elected official. Now, I know that we should not be judged for the sins of our kin, but we are not all appointed by a city known for its corruption. It is not my place to connect the dots and call out Councilor Rafferty's integrity, but she seems to feel pretty comfortable throwing that word around.

At best, these two appropriations appear shady in at a time where the city can not afford to take steps backwards and lose some of the respect it's recently recovered. At worst, they are as bad as they appear and the city is in worse hands than we thought. Uber is winning the PR battle against the City Council over transportation, but the city is beating itself when its citizens see what Councilor Rafferty is doing with their money.

People don't want to move to a city that has City Councilors like that. Businesses don't want to open up downtown when the city votes to push away a service that will more effectively transport their customers. And the Democratic National Convention certainly doesn't want to come to a city with a cab system as unreliable as Birmingham's on a normal day

Uber will be the main topic at the council meeting this Tuesday. I hope you will join me in encouraging our leaders to progress the discussion. Push them to change it from "should we allow Uber to change our status quo?" to "can we get them here before football season?"

Thomas Reid works as an associate at a CPA firm and lives in Birmingham.