On Tuesday, Rev. Cleveland McFarland, pastor of Saint Peter Missionary Baptist Church, accused the city council and the mayor’s administration of “backroom meetings” surrounding annexation and not providing information to the public.

“Either you have the information and the data, and not sharing it with the public, or you don’t know what the information is, which is even more disturbing,” McFarland said during the council’s regular meeting. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do this right.”

Several city council members took offense to the remarks, saying that the process has been handled transparently. Those included councilmembers Cory Penn, William Carroll and Scott Jones.

Earlier this year, Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson proposed annexing areas west of city limits in order to bring 26,000 more people into Mobile, making Mobile the second-largest city in Alabama. Proponents of the plan say that annexing those areas will bring more tax revenue to the city and allow the city to grow.

But pastors and community activists in the city have said that annexation could change the city’s demographics and erode Black representation on the city council. An annexation proposal failed in 2019 for similar reasons.