Category: City of Birmingham
Birmingham-hosted World Games Pushed Back Until 2022
The International World Games, scheduled for 2021 in Birmingham, will be held in 2022.
The event, originally slated to occur July 15-25, 2021, will now be held July 7-17, 2022, the International World Games Association announced Thursday morning.
The change is meant to avoid a clash with the Olympic Games, which was postponed to July 2021 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The games were originally slated to take place this July in Tokyo.
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Woodlawn: Change and Challenges Define a City Neighborhood
On one side of First Avenue North, Bayles Restaurant and Catering serves everything from thick hamburgers to lentil soup for a steady stream of residents, workers and even police officers. Across the street, other people flow into the soup kitchen offered by Grace Episcopal Church. A few blocks down at Woodlawn United Methodist Church, volunteers load boxes with meat, dry goods and vegetables for a regular food distribution to needy families.
You don’t have to look far to see both the success of redevelopment and the challenges that remain in Woodlawn.
The Health Community Assessment Tool compiled by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ranks Woodlawn among the top tier of Birmingham’s 99 neighborhoods in business retention and economic health. The community ranks near the bottom on public safety and blight.
Neighborhood leaders say change is coming and Woodlawn has seen rebirth in recent years – thanks to nonprofits, public-private partnerships, and a community of residents who refuse to let their neighborhood die.
“We just had to stand up,” said Donna Hall, a former officer in the Woodlawn Neighborhood Association. Read more.
Parkers Will Be Able to Pay at Birmingham Meters Using an App
The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to modernize its parking system, approving a three-year contract with ParkMobile, an application that allows users to pay for parking with their smartphones. The change, officials stressed, will add to, not replace, the coin-operated meter system used by the city.
ParkMobile will charge a 45-cent processing fee for payments made through its app; 15 cents of that fee will go to the city. Read more.
Senate Panel Discusses Confederate Monuments Bill
MONTGOMERY — A state lawmaker wants to increase penalties for cities that violate the state’s law protecting Confederate monuments, but others are concerned about creating financial burdens for smaller cities and the lack of an appeal process.
Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, said he introduced the bill in order to preserve the state’s history. “How can you tell the complete story by taking away, by whitewashing, by doing away with something that really you can learn something from it,” Allen said.
Allen’s Senate Bill 127 would increase penalties for violating the 2017 Alabama Memorial Preservation Act from a total of $25,000 to $10,000 a day. Read more.
Small Fraction of Students Qualify for Birmingham Promise University Scholarships
For urban students interested in college, tuition can be a major barrier. So when it was announced recently that the Birmingham Promise would offer a full tuition scholarship to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, many praised the partnership as a way to give eligible Birmingham graduates a much-needed financial boost. But there’s just one problem: most students aren’t eligible to apply for the scholarship. Read more.
Woodfin Touts Neighborhood Revitalization Work, Cuts in Crime Rates in Update on his Administration’s Progress
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin marked the halfway point of his first term in office Tuesday evening with a presentation highlighting his administration’s accomplishments and broadly gesturing toward his plans for the next two years.
Tuesday’s event, which took place at the downtown Birmingham venue Haven, followed a similar presentation that took place in March, also titled “The Big Picture.” Both events were intended to provide an update on the Woodfin administration’s strategic initiatives. But while March’s event featured presentations from a slew of city officials, Tuesday night’s presentation centered on a half-hour speech from Woodfin. Read more.
High Court Rules Confederate Monument Outside Birmingham City Hall Cannot Be Covered, Fines City
UPDATED – The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the city of Birmingham had violated state law by covering a Confederate monument outside City Hall. The decision reverses a previous ruling by the Jefferson County Circuit Court and orders the city to pay $25,000 in penalties to the state of Alabama.
The monument in question, in Birmingham’s Linn Park, was ordered covered in August 2017 by then-Mayor William Bell following deadly riots surrounding a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia. The monument, then-City Council President Johnathan Austin contended, “celebrate(s) racism, bigotry, hate and all those things that the South has been known for.”
By covering the monument, Bell said he intended to “challenge” state law, specifically the just-passed Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017, which prohibits local governments from moving or altering historically significant buildings or monuments that are more than 40 years old without permission from the state. The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was first placed in Linn Park by the Pelham chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1905. Read more.
New Birmingham Initiative Pardons Low-Level Marijuana Convictions
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin announced a new initiative Monday to pardon those who have been convicted of misdemeanor marijuana possession. Read more.
Birmingham Partnering With Bloomberg Philanthropies on Early Childhood Learning Program
Birmingham in October will be launching an early childhood program designed to increase interactive talk with children as a way to foster early brain development.
The Birmingham Talks program will serve 2,500 children, birth to 3 years old, across Jefferson County over the next three years.
The city of Birmingham is among five cities selected to replicate the Providence Talks program, which is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies through its What Works Cities initiative. Read more.
Birmingham Public Library’s Central Building to Close Monday for New Staircase
The Birmingham Public Library’s central building will close Monday as construction begins on a long-awaited staircase.
“I think we can all agree that today has been a long time coming,” Mayor Randall Woodfin said Tuesday during a press conference, drawing laughter from a crowd comprised mostly of BPL staffers and board members. “I thank each and every one of you for your patience. It’s been overwhelmingly tested.”
The stairs will replace a pair of escalators that extend from the building’s lobby to the fourth floor. Both escalators have been defunct — and roped off to prevent injuries — since December 2014.
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