Virginia Martin

In Search of Midnight Oil: JeffCo County Manager Preparing for Annual Budget Hearings

County Manager Cal Markert displayed a wry smile when asked if he is looking forward to budget hearings in August. “I look forward to it being over and done, I guess,” he said after the Jefferson County Commission’s meeting today in Bessemer. “It’s coming up and we’ve got to do it. It’s just a lot of extra work. Not extra work but a lot of work.” Setting the county’s budget is an annual balancing act of determining where funds can be allotted to accomplish needed projects, and it involves hearings during which department heads meet with Markert and county commissioners to make their case for requested funds during fiscal 2024. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Birmingham will fund a ‘violence intervention’ program. Can it get to the heart of the problem?

Michelle Farley remembers Rico. He was a member of the Youth Action Committee at One Roof, the Birmingham homelessness services organization where Farley serves as executive director. In 2019, Rico was shot, according to Farley, and remained hospitalized for weeks. He was then released, she said, “with no more resources for conflict resolution or violence prevention than when he entered.” Just a few weeks later, Rico was shot for a second time. He didn’t make it. On Tuesday, the Birmingham City Council approved a pilot program to provide services to those impacted by gun violence in the Magic City. Read more.

by Lee Hedgepeth

Cooper Green Mercy Construction Proceeding; Opening Expected in Late 2024/Early 2025

Jefferson County Commissioners today received a progress report on construction of the Cooper Green Mercy Health Services Authority building. The new clinic is being constructed where the Cooper Green Hospital parking deck had been. Administrator Laura Hurst said the building will have five stories with the first four being occupied upon completion. The fifth floor allows for expansion. David Randall, board president and CEO of the health authority, said the construction is only part of the changes at Cooper Green. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

A Journalism Disaster in Georgia

The conventional thinking warns that the stories that get news organizations in trouble are the ones they’d least expect. It’s not the sensitive major investigations because those get so heavily vetted before publication. LOL. Try getting The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to agree with the conventional thinking right now. On June 27, the AJC published a seemingly worthy expose alleging that the University of Georgia football program under head coach Kirby Smart engaged in systematic protection of players who had been accused of sexual assault. The story claimed the AJC knew of 11 such situations but, notably, included the names of only two of the 11 players. The article prompted the university’s athletic association to send a letter to the AJC, claiming major inaccuracies and bias. It raised the possibility of reporter fabrication, and demanded a retraction of the entire article. College athletic programs hide and twist facts a lot, but the nine-page, highly detailed letter made a persuasive case that the report had to be somewhat or perhaps seriously flawed. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

Alabama Legislature Passes Controversial Congressional Map

The approved map aims to address the federal court ruling but leads to tensions and claims of voter suppression. Read more.

by Alander Rocha and Jemma Stephenson, Alabama Reflector

Alabama House, Senate Approve Separate Congressional Maps

Republican supermajorities in the Alabama House and Senate approved two separate congressional maps with a single majority-Black congressional district and one with a Black population ranging from 38% to 42%. Democrats in both chambers, who support maps with two majority-Black districts, opposed both proposals and said they would not satisfy federal courts that ruled that the state’s earlier congressional maps violate the Voting Rights Act. Read more.

by Jemma Stephenson and Alander Rocha, Alabama Reflector

Alabama House, Senate GOP Approve Two Separate Congressional Maps

House and Senate Republicans approved two different congressional maps in committees Tuesday, potentially creating a conflict just days ahead of a deadline to submit proposals to a federal court. The House State Government committee approved a new state congressional map that creates a majority-Black congressional district in western Alabama and a 42% Black district in the southeastern part of the state. But a Senate committee Tuesday approved a map that lowers the Black population to 38% in the southeastern district while reducing the Black population in the western district to about 50%. Read more.

by Alander Rocha and Jemma Stephenson, Alabama Reflector

Bolin Elected to JeffCo Commission, Preserves Republican Majority on the Commission

Mike Bolin is retired no more. The former Alabama Supreme Court justice has a new job as the newly elected District 5 representative on the Jefferson County Commission. Bolin, 74, of Vestavia Hills received 5,728 votes, or 59% of the total, while developer David Silverstein, 67, of Mountain Brook amassed 3,924 votes, or 41%. “I spent 35 years in the judicial branch of government,” Bolin said after learning of his victory. “Now I’ll be embarking on a quasi-executive-legislative branch of government. I’m anxious to work with the members of the commission, to be fiscally conservative (and) to work for the betterment of the whole county I was born in and I’ve always lived in and always will.” Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

North Birmingham’s Bluestone Coke Plant Issued Warning for Clean Water Act Violations

The industrial plant has 60 days to clean up contaminated water in Five Mile Creek before it faces a federal lawsuit, local environmental groups warn. Read more.

by Danny McArthur, Gulf States Newsroom/WBHM

‘This just can’t go on’: Birmingham City Councilors Somber a Day After Firefighter’s Death

As Birmingham’s city councilors met Tuesday, the mood was somber. Just a day earlier, Jordan Melton, a Birmingham firefighter, had died as a result of injuries he suffered when he and his colleague, Jamal Jones, were shot inside Station 9 on July 12. As council members gathered in Boutwell Auditorium for their regularly scheduled meeting, a shirt was draped in solidarity across the tables at the front of the room. It was a show of solidarity: “Birmingham Fire & Rescue,” it said across its front. “On behalf of Mayor Woodfin, I want to express that our hearts are with the Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service and the Melton family as they continue to mourn Monday’s passing of firefighter Jordan Melton after he was shot last week at Station 9 in Norwood,” Cedric Sparks, the mayor’s chief of staff, said at the meeting. Read more.

by Lee Hedgepeth