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*This is an opinion column*

TUSCALOOSA, AL — A tight scowl on my face, I sat arms crossed in a stiff easy chair with my back to the only lobby exits in the Hampton Inn by Hilton on Harper Lee Drive in mid-June.

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It was a Monday and while my schedule was inundated, a random tip made me drop everything to rush across town to the Tuscaloosa hotel under the pretense that something fishy was going on behind closed doors. I'm a sucker for it.

Less than a month after the new Tuscaloosa City Council was sworn in, my suspicions that day were confirmed when all six sitting Council members emerged one by one from a nondescript conference room. I'll never forget the greasy aroma of conveyer-belt Domino's pizza filling the air as soon as the sliding door rolled opened.

While I raised immediate questions relating to the legality of the meeting, which was not announced to the public, the officials — admittedly led by newly-minted Council President Kip Tyner — each insisted, in their own words, that it was an informal business lunch where no policy was discussed.

Here's where it gets hairy.

As I previously reported, "gatherings" are permitted by state and municipal law for elected members of the council, even when there are enough in attendance to have a formal quorum. Rather, the focus of concern with respect to the law comes in the topics discussed. Indeed, it's illegal for official city matters that could be voted on by the council to be discussed by said elected officials in a meeting not advertised to the public.

I've reported on politics for more than a decade and should have viewed this high strangeness as a precursor of things to come. Instead, I halfway took Tyner's word for it when he insisted to me that the meeting, while behind closed doors, was completely above board and served as an informal way for the incumbents to get better acquainted with the three newly-elected Council members who had been sworn in the month before.

As a quick side note: This meeting occurred before the hotly-contested District 7 race was decided by a special election over the summer, so only six Council seats were occupied.

They even offered me leftover, room-temperature pizza, which I politely declined.

And maybe the meeting was an innocent one. After all, there were no ethics complaints filed that I know of, no arrests made and, apart from a chiding in print from Mayor Walt Maddox that only appeared on Patch, no repercussions.

What this event signaled to me, rather, was that this Council was going to operate much differently following the exits of longtime Council President Cynthia Lee Almond and District 1's Phyllis Odom — both respected senior leaders on the Council.

Almond's departure paved the way, by default, for Tyner to become the longest-serving council member, thus ascending to his present title and most powerful form to date. In the past, Tyner has made no secret of his deep desire to hold the Council's most influential position and no doubt has his own plans for putting his individual stamp on the office.

Unrelated, but worth noting, the pizza party meeting did me no favors in bonding with a new Council, especially while I was fairly new on the scene myself. Since that weird and faithful day, I rarely get responses to my inquires from any of the Council members and the relationships have, by and large, been cold, quiet and distant. Sometimes you can tell the truth and still burn a bridge, which I didn't mind doing in the least on that insufferable hot summer day.

But let's rock on to December.

In the last Pre-Council Briefing for city officials — the function of which serves to get time-intensive preliminary discussions out of the way before the full Council meeting later in the day — the Council unanimously gave the green light to a component of its 2022 Legislative Agenda that went largely unnoticed. Its impact, however, would likely be felt by more people than they seem to realize.

As I reported on Monday, city officials have been tight-lipped off camera and outside of City Hall when asked about a proposed date change for the city's next municipal election in 2025. It's the absolute last measure on the otherwise benign multi-page document and, if crafted into a bill and passed by the state legislature, would move the general election that year from the third Tuesday in March to the third Tuesday in May.

Why is this important, you might ask? Think about when the date falls.

For example, when examining today's scheduling, finals week at the University of Alabama and Shelton State Community College are typically set for the first week of May, which concludes the spring semester for both schools. For Stillman College, its finals week has most recently been in late April.

I can say from experience that, by the time grades are posted roughly a week or so after finals, many of the students have packed up and gone home for the summer or are gearing up to graduate and leave town. It's clear the townies in Tuscaloosa and "The Machine" are the belligerents in this case study, but there has not been one mention of the collateral damage to the local electorate that would impact students at our other colleges.

So who are we really protecting here? The electorate or the elected?

As one friend accurately commented on my reporting yesterday, students could still vote absentee if they wanted to participate in the election. Indeed, they most certainly could. But, if we're being honest, the likelihood would be slim in a post-COVID world and I have my doubts about absentee paper ballots being the panacea that sets right such a sweeping change to in-person expectations at the polls.

The measure on the legislative agenda was forwarded by District 4 Councilman Lee Busby, who used a bunch of overly-technical jargon, sprinkled with some legalese, to introduce a short-sighted piece of policy that takes specific aim at decreasing the number of registered voters who would be likely to cast ballots on election day.

In other words — voter suppression. It's that simple.

As someone who can translate five-dollar words and doublespeak, it became obvious to this reporter just what the overarching goal is. They weren't really even trying that hard to hide it. Maybe they think you folks at home or the registered voters on campus aren't sharp enough to catch it. Maybe they think you aren't involved or aware enough to give a damn?

So, why would any elected official want to do this? In keeping score with how the proposal was received by the three re-elected incumbents, it became obvious there would be no pushback from the sitting politicians who have fought hard for their seats and no doubt want to retain them. You also weren't likely to see any opposition from their greenhorn colleagues, two of whom admitted to me following that June pizza party that they weren't totally sure if the meeting was legal.

Busby, who has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Patch concerning the election date change, makes the flat argument that it would help the city avoid costly election challenges made by "temporary" residents — I.E. college students — who, in most cases, are unable to sustain a protracted and expensive courtroom battle that also draws money from city coffers. Those are his paraphrased words, not mine.

Obviously, you should be skeptical of this approach for one main reason, being that municipal election challenges, while costly, are nowhere near common enough to present a problem worthy of prompting such a drastic change to an election date.

A quick footnote worth pointing out that I've seen in multiple states: Municipal election challenges also occur in districts that don't have sizable populations of "temporary" residents, as Busby likes to refer to them.

Take District 7 in Tuscaloosa for instance. Where's the rush by the Council to implement fresh policy that prevents a similar situation from playing out in the future? As toxic as those two elections were, couldn't the argument be made that we find ways to avoid it moving forward?

Busby is a sharp and experienced man, who has served his country honorably and who I have no doubt has a good and noble heart. But his argument just rings hollow to the experienced ear and feels like a distraction cloaking personal motives. It could be the optics and Lord knows I've been wrong before. But Busby is the tip of the spear for this one and, considering the elephant in the room that is positioned squarely in his council district, it's hard to not question his true intentions.

While unrelated to the dynamics and nuances of the young Council, the measure marks the second time since 2015 that the city's municipal election has seen a proposed change in date, with it last being moved from August to March. This was done in an effort to remove any doubt when it came to a level playing field for the "temporary" set and the townies, alike. It was also the direct result of a vicious election contest for the city school board that saw Tuscaloosa attorney Kelly Horwitz eventually win a voter fraud case against fellow attorney and election winner Cason Kirby, who was widely viewed as the candidate endorsed by the University of Alabama's Greek shadow system known as "The Machine."

I vividly remember that election — and Stan Pate's billboards — from covering it for Planet Weekly magazine in Tuscaloosa in 2013. It made a mockery of our local elections, flaunted it out in the open and justifiably damaged the townie perception of any politics connected to the University of Alabama.

But, when considering today's issues, that seems like an eternity ago.

As one local elected official not associated with the City of Tuscaloosa described it to me on background, the sweeping support from multi-term Council members sends a message of "we want your money, but we don't want you to participate in our elections."

It's a concise way to frame the argument, but a cogent one when considering the rug that could be snatched out from under such a large part of the electorate.

For now, though, the matter has left the hands of city officials and will now be taken up by the Alabama Legislature. It remains unclear how it will be received by Tuscaloosa's legislative delegation, with the proposal sure to generate outcry once politically-savvy student leaders return to Tuscaloosa-area campuses. My hope is that the student bodies of Shelton State and Stillman College will be made aware of this attempted power grab and speak out to stop it or at least have their voices heard.

Given the nature of the proposed date change, though, these students seem to be less than afterthoughts to incumbents who want to make it easier to retain their grips on power. Or, once again, at least that's the way it looks from the grandstands, especially considering the Council's propensity for underlying agendas and super secret pizza parties.

Simply put, detractors are sure to argue that the move is nothing more than a gross overreach that will succeed if voters are suppressed. Like gerrymandering, it's one tested piece in the age-old political toolbox that can be counted on to shore up as much instant influence as possible for the person writing the policy. In this case, the townie candidates who could possibly see challenges from heavily-supported campaigns and initiatives originating on the UA campus, are in full support of policy that would make it easier for them to chop the opposition off at the knees — regardless of the larger impacts.

As I previously reported, indifference to the proposed change in date was the prevailing sentiment among council members during last week's meeting, with more time spent discussing the mild spring weather that could be expected on the campaign trail, as opposed to implications for registered voters within the city limits.

That's the part that drove my blood pressure up.

But, while the multi-term council members found this to be a useful distraction in the public discussion, first-term District 1 Councilman Matthew Wilson was the only elected official to raise something resembling a concern.

Despite making contact with Wilson before and after the holidays, where he expressed his willingness to talk on the matter, he has yet to respond to requests for comments on the proposed date change. This, despite saying a week ago during the meeting that he wanted to weigh the pros and cons of the situation.

Considering that Stillman College and its 700 or so students would be drastically impacted in Wilson's district, I hope these were conversations that were had before the policy was stamped off and sent to Montgomery.

I was born and raised in Tuscaloosa County and as long as I can remember in my 32 years, the establishment types in City Hall and the politically-ambitious set from UA have always been at loggerheads. And while past measures have supposedly leveled the playing field and thwarted political malfeasance, the focus of the selfish bickering continually changes ever so slightly and, most importantly, persists — getting more toxic with each overreach, regardless of the side its coming from.

The common denominator, though, has always been a rush to action when it seems too much power is being amassed by political figures or initiatives permeating the body politic in the City of Tuscaloosa.

I will, however, give concessions to our four newest Council members. As I've seen with my own eyes multiple times over my career, it's difficult to not go with the flow in your first year or so in office. You want to make friends and get things done.

But, the people of Tuscaloosa — Alabama's top college town — deserve better than that.

I'll also concede that the overall dynamic on the Council is drastically different from this time last year. But as everyone is growing into their roles, inexperience can't be an excuse for very long.

So, instead of dangling comfortable campaign weather in the faces of the political newcomers on the Council, my hope is that fair leadership and common sense will prevail. If not, I hope our legislative delegation spits this corrosive attempt at social engineering back at Tuscaloosa City Hall and the folks who came up with it — for no reason other than equality in our Democratic process.

When someone is making it harder for ANYONE to participate at the ballot box, we've got a serious problem that must be addressed.

Have a news tip or suggestion on how I can improve Tuscaloosa Patch? Maybe you're interested in having your business become one of the latest sponsors for Tuscaloosa Patch? Email all inquiries to me at ryan.phillips@patch.com