As Northport plans its future, residents offer feedback

The city of Northport hosted a public meeting Monday night, ensuring residents could address the mayor and council with any potential needs or concerns.

District 4 Council Member Jamie Dykes said the council wants to hear any concerns or issues residents have with Northport or its services.

“There are just so many things that are going on in the city right now,” Dykes said. We needed somebody to come in and kind of put it all together and then give us a plan moving forward.”

As part of that effort, the city is hiring KPS Group Consulting Firm out of Birmingham. The firm will create a plan based on improvement suggestions offered by residents, and the council can take those suggestions and the plan and decide what the city should be doing next.

KPS Vice President Jason Fondren said one of the biggest issues he’s heard so far? Traffic jams.

“The city council put a priority on making sure there was significant amount of community involvement throughout the process,” Fondren said. “They felt that they needed someone with experience to do that and for them to be able to back away and let the community have its say.”

During the workshop, residents split into groups and worked toward coming up with ideas that could positively impact Northport.

Northport resident Jaime Conger has lived in the city for 15 years and said excited about potential changes.

“I have really appreciated the positive direction the city of Northport has been taking over the last several years,” Conger said. “I was happy to see we are taking the steps to have a comprehensive plan to continue to move forward.”