Virginia Martin

House Fire Kills Mother of BirminghamWatch’s Robert Carter

A fire destroyed a Fairfield home early this morning, killing the 90-year-old mother of frequent BirminghamWatch contributor Robert Carter. Carter said he was in bed when he smelled smoke. He went into the living room to find a broken lamp and the curtains on fire. He tried to put the fire out, but it spread quickly. He yelled for his mother and did manage to wake her up, but she was unable to escape the house because of the thick smoke, Carter said. The fire swept to the attic and collapsed the roof, destroying the house, in the 700 block of 41st Street South in Fairfield. Funeral arrangements for Ginny Carter, 90, have not been set. A fund to accept donations has been set up at the Carters’ church, Garywood Assembly of God. For information, call 744-8135.

by Virginia Martin

A Universal Action: When PR’s Goal Is to Hide the Truth

Very few people knew just how devastating was the June 2008 fire at the Universal Music Group’s archives that destroyed the master recordings of thousands of musical artists – from Count Basie to Snoop Dog, Chuck Berry to Nirvana. The company made sure. In fact, it took 11 years before the public began to fully understand the loss. The New York Times Magazine revealed the losses in its story published June 11, 2019.. The story is worth reading for many reasons – as an accounting of what happened, and insight into the magnitude of the losses that go beyond the mere millions of dollars and cents. But there’s another way to read the story — as an example of public relations scheming. The Times’ story points out many places where Universal’s public relations staff did its best to hide the extent of the losses — to itself, to the music makers who entrusted their original master recordings to the company and to the public. Only with insurance filings did it seem to reveal the losses. Read more.

by Chris Roberts

Highlights From The Big Q: Youth and Race

In this episode of The Big Q, WBHM discussed the intersection of youth and race. How do young people look at race? How do they handle differences? And how do educators handle acts of racism in the classroom? Read more.

by Miranda Fulmore, WBHM 90.3

Court Hearing Focuses on Alabama’s Minimum Wage Law

Judges for the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday on Alabama’s minimum wage law. The law was passed by the state Legislature in 2016, quashing an attempt by Birmingham’s city government to raise its minimum wage from the federal minimum of $7.25 to $10.10. The act gives that authority exclusively to the state. Plaintiffs in the case argue that the law was racially motivated. But judges hearing the case Tuesday focused mainly on a procedural issue, questioning whether the lawsuit was properly filed against the state attorney general, the Associated Press reported. Read more.

by Sam Prickett

Public Hearing Set on Proposal to Block New Self-Storage Developments in Birmingham

The Birmingham City Council will hold a public hearing next week to discuss a potential moratorium on new self-storage, mini-warehousing facilities in the city. The proposal, spearheaded by District 5 Councilor Darrell O’Quinn, would halt all city involvement in the creation of new self-storage facilities — including the issuance of permits and zoning approvals — except in areas already zoned as M-4 (Planned Industrial) or I-4 (Industrial Park) districts. Read more.

by Sam Prickett

Cooper Green Mercy Health System Executive Director Resigns

Less than a week after the Jefferson County Commission hired a deputy director at Cooper Green Mercy Health System, Executive Director Armika Berkley today resigned from her position. Her last day is Aug. 16. Efforts to reach Berkley were unsuccessful. County manager Tony Petelos acknowledged receipt of the letter and said Berkley’s resignation has been accepted. He said the resignation was unanticipated. “She’s just moving on,” Petelos told BirminghamWatch. “She’s been with us over two years now. We were very fortunate to have her during this period of time. “It’s been difficult at Cooper Green over the past several years with the work that’s going on and the lack of staff that we have,” he said. “We’ve lost some key positions over there.” Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

A Conversation With the Superintendent: Birmingham Schools’ Herring Talks About Facing Competition for Students, Being Accountable and Building Relationships

Birmingham City Schools have a lot of competition for students, as reflected in enrollment decline and in the private, parochial, charter and other alternative schools that serve the Birmingham community. Students in the city have many options, depending on religious affiliation, or ability to pay, or talent, or simply availability and choice. That competition does not go unnoticed and it does have an impact, Dr. Lisa Herring, superintendent of the Birmingham City Schools, said in a recent interview. But she did not grant competition from alternative schools an outsized share of responsibility for enrollment declines in the city schools. She said talking about competition for Birmingham students also means considering other factors important to student success. “We always want to strive to be the very best,” she said. “We know that there’s accountability in that. And I believe that’s important, not just for our students but for our teachers, principals, parents and all. But we just want what’s best for our children. … So, if we talk about competition, we have to talk about care. If we say competition, we have to talk about competency.” Having looked at BCS enrollment over the past 10 years, she said, “There has been slight decline, not extreme, but certainly slight in that there’s some decline each year with one exception … . There was one year when we had an increase.” The increase was in the 2015-2016 school year, when BCS had 24,010 students in K-12, according to the Alabama State Department of Education website, up from 23,963 the year before. Otherwise Birmingham schools have had gradual declines most of the past decade, with the end result of a nearly 5,000 student decrease. In 2008-2009, the school system had 27,218 enrolled in K-12, according to the state department information. In the 2018-2019 school year, it had 22,246. The ALSDE website includes enrollment back to 1995-1996, when BCS had 39,545 students in K-12. Pre-K numbers dropped over the decade, from 2,109 in 2008-2009 to 1,938 in 2018-2019. Pre-K enrollment peaked in 2013-2014 with 2,331 students. Going back to ‘95-‘96, there were 3,192 students in pre-K. Declining enrollment, Herring said, is not all about students leaving for alternatives. “That’s tied to not just having school opportunities and school choice, but also a highly transient community. But to answer your question specifically, it makes us want to stay focused on making our schools a first choice based on offerings, and it’s based on performance.” Read more.

by Nick Patterson

Congressional Votes for the Week Ending June 21

WASHINGTON – Alabama’s delegation in the House of Representatives split along party lines last week on a vote aimed at funding the Trump administration's proposed addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The House voted 192 for and 240 against the amendment, which was offered to a $690.4 billion spending package (HR 3055) for fiscal 2020 that remained in debate at week's end. The outcome of the census affects many things, including some federal funding and the number of congressional seats a state is allocated. Amendment opponent Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., said the amendment would “reduce the accuracy and increase the undercount in places like Florida, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, California and New York. This, in turn, will affect reapportionment and the distribution of federal funds for the next decade in many of the communities we represent.”

by Voterama in Congress

Why No One Opposed a $31M Transfer From Alabama’s Education Budget

MONTGOMERY — In the last days of the legislative session, in late May, lawmakers quickly and quietly transferred a tax revenue worth nearly $31 million a year from the state’s education budget to the General Fund budget to fill a "hole" created by other financial commitments. Those normally opposed to diverting money from schools to other state expenses didn’t complain. Education advocacy groups were relieved the education budget didn’t get stuck with the growing expense of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, so losing a small, flat revenue source was an acceptable tradeoff. Some Republicans have said they didn’t know many details of the transfer, but leadership said the idea wasn’t new. Democrats in the House say they didn’t have time to oppose it. They found out about it when it was on the House floor on the second to last day of the session via an amendment to an economic incentives bill they supported. If they tried to kill the transfer, they’d kill the incentives. “What do you do?” said House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville. “You go on record voting against a bill for rural incentives?” Daniels said. “Or do you approve an amendment that there’s a year to contend with?” Read more.

by Mary Sell and Todd Stacy, Alabama Daily News

Next Phase in Minimum Wage Battle Begins Tuesday

Oral arguments are slated to begin this week in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as part of the latest stage of a prolonged legal battle over Alabama’s minimum wage law. The focus of the case is the Alabama Uniform Minimum Wage and Right-to-Work Act, which was passed by the state Legislature in 2016, quashing an attempt by Birmingham’s city government to raise its minimum wage from the federal minimum of $7.25 to $10.10. The act gives that authority exclusively to the state — meaning that raising the minimum wage above the federal level can only be done by an act of the Legislature. Plaintiffs in the case, which include several Democratic state legislators, the Alabama NAACP and Greater Birmingham Ministries, allege that the law was racially motivated; state Attorney General Steve Marshall has argued, instead, that the state law has no racial animus and was based on purely economic factors. Read more.

by Sam Prickett