Government

One Year and Counting: Birmingham Mayor Woodfin Focuses on Revitalizing Neighborhoods

This is the third in a series of three articles looking at the first year of Randall Woodfin’s tenure as mayor. In its first year, Randall Woodfin’s administration has restructured the mayor’s office and moved to address the city’s violent crime rate. But the crux of Woodfin’s political career thus far has been the issue of neighborhood revitalization. On the campaign trail, he repeated the mantra that Birmingham “is only as strong as our lowest quality-of-life neighborhoods,” accusing then-Mayor William Bell of focusing on downtown development while neglecting other areas. Woodfin’s revitalization plan has largely focused on maintaining and improving basic city services in neighborhoods, such as paving streets and sidewalks, demolishing dilapidated structures, cutting overgrown lots and picking up trash — what he calls the “blocking and tackling” of government. While the practicalities of bureaucracy have slowed some of Woodfin’s neighborhood revitalization projects, including his 100 Homes, 100 Days program, he maintains that his administration’s approach has been “aggressive,” and promises that it will get more so. “Day one of year two, the priority and sense of urgency is still around neighborhood revitalization,” Woodfin told reporters a week before the anniversary of his inauguration as mayor. “We are going to get the fundamentals of government right.” Read more. Read the first two articles in the series.

One Year and Counting: A Year After His Inauguration, Mayor Woodfin Promises a Comprehensive Crime Plan by the End of the Year

One Year and Counting: Birmingham Mayor Woodfin Cuts Administrative Positions, Focuses on Inclusion and Takes Steps to Protect Pensions

Listen to WBHM’s report on Woodfin’s anniversary.

by Sam Prickett

Birmingham Council Strikes Deal With Developer on Red Mountain Land; No Development Plans Revealed

Despite misgivings from neighborhood residents and the councilor for the district, the Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to vacate 56,672 square feet of a road atop Red Mountain on behalf of a private developer. The stretch of road is on Henrietta Road between 22nd Street South and the Red Mountain Expressway. The resolution also includes a 15-foot-wide alley off 22nd Street South. As a result of the resolution, both areas will no longer be designated for public use. George W. Barber Jr. — who owns Barber Companies, a commercial real estate company, as well as the property surrounding the road and alley in question — will pay the city $146,717.25 in vacation fees. Don Erwin, the vice president of corporate development at Barber Companies, did not share what future plans Barber has for the property. Read more.

by Virginia Martin

State Looking at Plans to Fix or Replace Crowded, Crumbling Prisons; Lawmakers Don’t Expect to Be Part of Infrastructure Plan

Gov. Kay Ivey and the Alabama Department of Corrections aren’t yet talking publicly about possible fixes for the state’s crowded and aging prisons, but they are extending a multimillion-dollar contract with an outside project manager to study construction needs. Some leaders in the Statehouse say they expect Ivey to move forward with a plan for new prisons that doesn’t require legislative approval. “We’re going to have several prison-related bills (in the 2019 legislative session), but none will be infrastructure,” Sen. Cam Ward said recently. He expects Ivey next year will begin the process to pay private companies for prison space. “XYX company builds it, we lease it,” Ward, R-Alabaster, said. The new prisons would be staffed and run just like state-owned facilities. Read more.

by Mary Sell

Jeffco Commissioner Stephens Was Rooting for the Other Side in Bet Over Road Construction

Jimmie Stephens admitted that he wanted to lose the bet. The president of the Jefferson County Commission had a friendly wager that work to widen Morgan Road in Bessemer wouldn’t be underway by December 2018. “I have seen the holdups,” Stephens said following Monday’s commission committee meeting. “I felt it was a bet that was easy for me to make but it is one I was hoping I would lose. Unfortunately, I didn’t.” Plans to widen Morgan Road from its current two-lane alignment to four lanes and a turn lane have been two decades in the making. Stephens said 14,000 to 18,000 cars travel that road per day, either headed north of Interstate-459 or south of the interstate. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Congressional Votes for the Week Ending Nov. 30

WASHINGTON – Alabama’s congressional Representatives split on a measure to extend the National Flood Insurance Program to Dec. 7. Without approval of that bill, the program would have closed Nov. 30. The House on Nov. 29 voted 350 for and 46 against to approve the short-term extension. The House last year passed a long-term extension, which has stalled in the Senate. That bill was controversial because it would partially privatize the federally run program. Already, more than $20 billion in debt despite a recent taxpayer bailout of $16 billion, the program – without reforms – is expected to take on red ink at an accelerated pace as hurricanes and flooding become increasingly destructive as a result of global warming, which the GOP-led Congress has declined to address with legislation. Nearly five million residential and commercial properties located in flood plains in 22,000 communities are covered by national flood insurance. Read more about how senators voted on key issues in the week ending Nov. 30.

by Voterama in Congress

One Year and Counting: Birmingham Mayor Woodfin Cuts Administrative Positions, Focuses on Inclusion and Takes Steps to Protect Pensions

The grey concrete exterior of City Hall might look the same as it did a year ago, but inside, real changes have been made. Since he took office last November, Mayor Randall Woodfin has made significant changes to his office — including reducing perceived inefficiencies, emphasizing inclusion, and working to undo a budgeting shortfall that could affect city employees for decades to come. Read more. This is the second in a series of three articles looking at the first year of Randall Woodfin’s tenure as mayor.

One Year and Counting: A Year After His Inauguration, Mayor Woodfin Promises a Comprehensive Crime Plan by the End of the Year

Listen to WBHM’s report on Woodfin’s anniversary.

by Sam Prickett

One Year and Counting: A Year After His Inauguration, Mayor Woodfin Promises a Comprehensive Crime Plan by the End of the Year

This is the first in a series of three articles looking at the first year of Randall Woodfin’s tenure as mayor. When Randall Woodfin was inaugurated as mayor of Birmingham on Nov. 28, 2017, he took time during his speech to address the city’s high rate of gun violence — an “epidemic,” he said, that had been steadily rising since 2015. “My heart is with every family who has lost a loved one to murder in our city,” he told the crowd assembled in front of City Hall. “My prayers, my energy, my sympathy and my empathy — we have to do something. … We have to better police our city, and in better policing our city, it is going to take this entire community to feel empowered where you live, to make sure we are protecting our neighbors. We have had enough of violence in our city, and I stand before you today to let you know, I can show you better than I can tell you, it will be different.” The numbers for Woodfin’s first year in office don’t look much different from 2017. At the time of his inauguration, the city had logged 104 homicides for the year; that number would later rise to 117 by year’s end. As of Nov. 28, 2018, there have been 102 homicides in Birmingham for the year. But if the statistics are the same, the city’s approach to lowering them has been gradually changing under Woodfin’s watch, though we won’t know the full specifics of his administration’s strategy, he said, until later this year. Read more.

Listen to WBHM’s report on Woodfin’s anniversary.

by Sam Prickett

Birmingham Council OKs Firehouse Funding After Contentious Meeting

More than a month after the Birmingham City Council rejected a five-year funding proposal for the Firehouse Ministries Homeless Shelter, it voted on the item again Tuesday — and this time, it passed. The funding proposal hadn’t changed since it had last come before the council on Oct. 23; it still allocated $200,000 per year for five years to the Firehouse, which is building a $5.6 million facility to expand its services for the homeless. But the council itself had changed drastically since Oct. 23, with two councilors leaving and another, District 7’s Wardine Alexander, being appointed in the interim. The absence of former councilors Lashunda Scales and Sheila Tyson, who both resigned from the council in November to join the Jefferson County Commission, was likely the deciding factor in the proposal’s passage. Both had vehemently opposed the measure, citing unsubstantiated allegations that the Firehouse did not give black patrons equal treatment, and along with District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt and District 9 Councilor John Hilliard, they formed the voting bloc that had initially blocked the Firehouse’s funding. But Hilliard was mostly silent during the discussion of the Firehouse funding Tuesday, and while Hoyt expressed at length his reservations about the funding, both ultimately voted to approve it. Alexander abstained from voting. Read more.

by Sam Prickett

As Alabama’s Unemployment Rate Decreases, Medicaid Enrollment Does Not

Alabama’s unemployment rate hit record lows in the past year, falling below 4 percent, but the number of people enrolled in Medicaid hasn’t decreased. Medicaid, the health care provider for the state’s poor and disabled, has higher enrollment now than when the unemployment rate hit nearly 12 percent in 2009. September enrollment was up slightly this year compared to September 2017. While more people are working, not all of them are in jobs that pay enough to get their families off Medicaid, advocates say.

Medicaid’s enrollment is troubling to state lawmakers, who’ve been advised that the way to curtail Medicaid’s ever-expanding cost is to get more Alabamians employed. “It’s a large concern, why the rolls aren’t shrinking as people get into the workforce,” state Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said recently. “I remember being told that as unemployment falls, so would Medicaid enrollment.” Read more.

by Mary Sell

Glenn, Phillips Face State Felony Charges Related to Federal Corruption Trial

The former head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s southeastern operations faces six state felony charges, and the former chairman of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission faces three felony charges related to a federal investigation into efforts to stop a cleanup of toxic industrial waste in North Birmingham. Trey Glenn, who resigned from his EPA post earlier this week, was indicted by a Birmingham grand jury on six felony counts of using his position for personal gain and 14 misdemeanor ethics charges. Scott Phillips, the former AMEC chair who also was a partner with Glenn in a consulting firm during his tenure with the commission was indicted on three felony counts of using his position for personal gain and 13 misdemeanors. The indictments were handed down Nov. 9, but the number of charges and their nature was not confirmed until the documents were made available Wednesday in the Alacourt online reporting system. All the charges relate to soliciting money from Drummond Company, which operates the ABC Coke facility in Tarrant, and contracting with the Balch and Bingham law firm in Birmingham as part of the scheme. Read more.

by Robert Carter