Why all the fuss? The true cost of operating in Arab, AL

Sep 11

5 min read

Hey friends,

Over the last ten years, I’ve done everything I could to encourage investment in downtown Arab. I didn’t just talk about supporting local businesses—I worked to make it happen.

I purchased additional buildings to help revitalize downtown. I joined the Historic Preservation Committee and eventually became its chair. Preserving the character of our historic district has always felt important to me, and I wanted to be an asset to this community.

Because I owned extra space, I started offering entrepreneurs affordable storefronts so they

could begin with lower overhead. Businesses like Namely Claudia’s and Southern General got their start in one of my buildings. That early support gave them time to build a customer base before taking on the full expense of their own locations.

Starting a business is hard. Sometimes all someone needs is a real opportunity. Watching those businesses grow brought me genuine joy. Every new shop strengthened downtown, and I’ve always believed that when one local business succeeds, everyone benefits.

these conversations matter. Supporting local business is about more than shopping local

An Unexpected Next Step

As time went on, another opportunity found me.

One day Kathy Ramsey approached me about buying the coffee shop she owned. I laughed and told her, “I don’t know anything about coffee.”

She smiled and said something I’ll never forget: “You know enough about business to be great at it.”

Because Kathy believed in me, I believed in myself. So I took the leap.

Owning the coffee shop became more than another business. It became another investment in

downtown. Every morning I unlocked those doors with excitement. I loved watching friends catch up over coffee, families stop in, and visitors discover our Main Street. At times it felt like something out of a Hallmark movie—especially at Christmas with the parade, hot chocolate, and that special warmth that fills the community. Those seasonal efforts came with expenses that came straight out of my pocket, but I believed they were worth it. I believed we were building something bigger than ourselves.

The Day Everything Changed

Then came the day that shifted my perspective—not because I stopped believing in downtown, but because I learned that loving your community doesn’t always mean the systems around you will protect you when things go wrong.

It started like any other day at the coffee shop. Business was good. Customers were visiting. Everything felt normal.

Then my manager called.

Sewage was coming up through the toilets, backing up through the sinks, and flooding the bathrooms.

We immediately stopped operations, closed the restrooms, and did everything we could to protect our customers. The Health Department arrived and, as they should have, shut us down. Our customers had to leave. We couldn’t reopen until the building had been cleaned, sanitized, and inspected.

That day taught me something every small business owner eventually learns: when something goes wrong, you’re the one who pays the price—whether it was your fault or not.

In this case, it wasn’t. Our employees lost valuable time. Our small coffee shop, which depends on every single order each day, lost significant revenue.

When I contacted the city, I was referred to the Sewer Department. The response was essentially, “What do you want us to do?”

That was the moment I realized how difficult it can be for a small business owner to find accountability when a public problem becomes a private loss.

Public Funding Has Been Invested—Now Accountability Matters

Arab’s sewer system has received substantial public investment over the years. According to Arab Sewer Board leadership, the city has spent approximately $30 million on sewer system improvements since 2001 to bring the system into compliance.

In the late 2010s, following ADEM enforcement actions related to sanitary sewer overflows, the Board pursued major rehabilitation work. This included Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) projects such as the Gilliam Creek and Riley Maze sewer system rehabilitations (involving cured-in-place pipe lining of tens of thousands of linear feet of gravity sewer, manhole rehabilitation, and service line work), with project awards in the multi-million-dollar range, alongside other loans and grants that officials described at the time as totaling nearly $10 million for plant upgrades and line replacements.

More recently, in 2026 the Alabama Department of Environmental Management made $1.5 million in financial assistance available to the Arab Sewer Board through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund – Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (CWSRF-IIJA) program. The project covers improvements to the wastewater treatment facility and collection system—including new blowers, bubble diffusers, flow-pacing dosing equipment, and rehabilitation of sewer lines and lift stations—with the stated goals of increasing system efficiency, reducing infiltration and inflow (I&I), and minimizing sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs).

These are real public dollars aimed at a real public system. Yet when a backup reaches a downtown business and forces a closure, the private owner still absorbs the lost revenue, the cleanup costs, the employee hours, and the uncertainty. High rates driven in part by more than $20 million in remaining department debt only compound the pressure on both residents and the businesses trying to keep Main Street alive.

A Call to Action for Our City Leadership

I still love downtown Arab. I still believe investing in local businesses, historic buildings, and the people who start them is the right thing to do. That part of my philosophy hasn’t changed.

What needs to change is how we respond when the public system fails private businesses.

I am asking our city leaders and the Arab Sewer Board to:

Establish a clear, published protocol for rapid response and communication when sewage backups or overflows impact commercial properties—especially in the historic downtown and Main Street corridor.
Create a transparent process for documenting impacts on small businesses and exploring practical support or mitigation options when the failure originates in the public system.
Prioritize reliability improvements that protect existing downtown businesses alongside system-wide upgrades, and report regularly on how recent and ongoing CWSRF and other public funds are reducing overflows in commercial areas.
Engage business owners as partners, not afterthoughts. The same Main Street that generates sales tax and community vitality is the one most vulnerable when infrastructure problems surface inside a storefront.

Stronger downtowns require more than individual effort from people like me who buy buildings, offer affordable space, and create gathering places. They require systems that work—and leaders who treat the businesses investing in those systems as stakeholders worth protecting.

I’m sharing this because these conversations matter. Supporting local business is about more than shopping local. It’s about the real cost of keeping Main Street alive—and the shared responsibility that should exist when unexpected challenges hit.

Grateful for this community,

still invested in downtown,

and still believing we can do better together.