Business View Civil Municipal - Sept 2023

25 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 9 ATHENS , ALABAMA for several different financial institutions. I go around and check on their residential construction sites and make sure the builders are doing what they say they’re doing so that the banks can release the money. I see firsthand all of the takedowns of lots. What at one time was a cornfield or a cottonfield is now a tract-home subdivision with multiple units going up. I would say it was unprecedented, but I think it’s precedent growth because we all knew that this was going to take place. It was just that it sort of happened overnight.” Marks cites new businesses in Athens, new jobs, and new opportunities, all of which increase the property value of homes. He brings up the Old Black Bear Brewing Company and Salty Cod Pub as examples of taking old buildings and renovating them. Forty percent of Athens’s general-fund budget is sales-tax revenue, which must be increased to fund the local fire, police, and sanitation departments, as Marks opines.