Baldwin Begins Tax-Rate Hearings Without a Documented Final Decision

Baldwin City Council opened its first public hearing on the city’s 2025 millage rate at 8:03 p.m. on Sept. 9, 2025, beginning a three-hearing process over the property-tax rate. Legal Counsel Bubba Samuels opened the hearing and explained its guidelines, and one resident addressed the council, according to the meeting minutes.

The millage rate is the figure the city uses to calculate property taxes, so the proceeding carried consequences for property owners and for the revenue Baldwin can raise. The hearing was residents’ formal opportunity to speak before a final rate decision, but the record does not state what rate the council was considering.

The Sept. 9 session marked the opening, rather than the conclusion, of Baldwin’s stated three-hearing process. Samuels’ presentation of hearing rules and the resident comment show that the council had moved the issue into its public-input stage; the minutes do not record a subsequent vote during that first hearing.

For the council, the hearing created a required public forum before any documented action on the 2025 tax rate. Samuels guided that forum as the city’s legal counsel, while the resident who spoke used the public-comment period to address the council. The minutes identify that participation but do not summarize the resident’s position or record council members’ views on a particular rate.

What is confirmed is limited: Baldwin held the first of three hearings, legal counsel opened it, and one resident spoke. The meeting minutes do not give a proposed millage-rate figure, document adoption of a rate, or establish whether later hearings occurred. As a result, neither the final 2025 rate nor the outcome of the process can be determined from this record.

The next public development to watch is an official record of Baldwin’s remaining millage-rate hearings or a council action setting the 2025 rate. Until such a record identifies the proposal and any vote, residents cannot tell from the documented first hearing what rate was ultimately considered or adopted.