Design Review Committee disapproves replacement "Sign"
Preserve Jazz Festival announces sabbatical for 2015
I’ve been sitting back and watching all the buzz online today with regard to UAB while starting to get ready for my turn to manage a weekly online journalism chat, but I’ve got to share some of the thoughts and questions on my mind:
1) I’m still wondering why Jabo Waggoner has stayed so quiet for so long? Why is that what’s on my mind? A timeline I created for a presentation about this suggests both Williams AND Waggoner were present for a late October meeting with UAB officials. Williams has been quite vocal while Waggoner’s made very few statements.
2) Most of the buzz from today jives with earlier statements made. Just because we don’t always pay attention to what’s been said doesn’t mean it hasn’t been public. It may just mean that emotions are strong on this issue (and rightfully so).
3) Assuming the bill that requires UAB must field a team passes, how do we as a community make sure the university as a whole (and the athletics department in particular) is not in this same position in 4-5 years? If UAB is going to get back a football team (and I, for one, hope that’s the case at some point), how is a similar financial situation kept from happening again? We will be making history anyway as the first state in the country to require that a university field a football team, so we probably want to make sure it stays viable to field teams for as long as possible (especially as we wait to see how the state will attempt to handle its own funding gap in the coming months).
4) Why did so many folks “wait to be asked” to do something if it’s been an issue for years? I’m not talking about those who’ve long served faithfully as boosters to the program, but those who would’ve made the burden less stressful (i.e., major corporate citizens). If it’s always been suggested that we must volunteer to lead instead of waiting to be asked, why point to not being asked as a reason for sitting on the sidelines instead of seeing the need and filling it? Will “they” step up and serve if asked (as they will need to moving forward)?
Then again, perhaps that same question can be asked about several issues currently facing the city and the region…
5) Can we take a moment and say how proud we are of the men’s basketball team for their NCAA tournament run for a little while longer? They did their university and this city proud and will probably be on more than a few radars next year.
6) When we look back, will this be a case of attempting to see what will get the home rule debate before the state’s citizens in a palatable way? If you take out UAB and insert the name of any major city in the state, isn’t it really about home rule? Is a constitutional amendment regulating an athletic team as important as ones that deal with the issues truly affecting the state right now? I’m a home rule fan. I’m not a fan of home rule with strings attached being dictated by the Legislature as is the case right now (see Question #3).
It may be oversimplifying a lot of what’s going on today, but it’s what I’ve got. Chime in if you have a moment (or if I’ve missed some questions — and believe me, there are a lot more that need to be asked of all sides on this one).
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By the way: Before I forget, I’d like to acknowledge a former UAH athlete not getting a lot of attention in Alabama in recent weeks – Cam Talbot. Talbot is the backup goalie for the New York Rangers and, in the absence of their number 1 goalie due to a damaged blood vessel, he’s once again proven he’s, as the Wall Street Journal calls him, “the best insurance policy in the NHL.” 36 saves last night alone – insane.
André Natta is the stationmaster of bhamterminal.com.
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I got there right as the sun was starting to set over the rolling hills of the Spain Park area and already there were at least 300 people chilling out, setting out blankets on the lawn, and setting up booths with food, patriotic t-shirts, literature and information about the Fair Tax, the Constitution, and fact sheets about the current administration’s backward policies.
Is Royal truly a voice of reason?
Council President Roderick Royal implored his fellow councilors to delay a decision for three weeks as he made his case to move the project from its proposed site due to concerns about it being in “a known path” of a tornado. The nearly 1 hour portion of yesterday’s meeting and the resulting vote (8-1 to delay for three weeks) has led to some passionate commentaries in both Weld for Birmingham and the July 11 edition of The Birmingham News.
Both Mark and John made so many valid points, so all I can do is take it one step further by pointing at cities like Greensburg, KS and Joplin, MO and ask if those rebuilding efforts are foolish? Maybe we shouldn’t be pushing recovery efforts in New Orleans, or Galveston, TX, or Charleston, SC? Considering I’m a native New Yorker… no, I won’t go there.
It’s interesting when you consider just a few months ago there were some folks a few hours north might have considered Royal a voice of reason thanks to a blog post.
ChicagoNow’s White Sox Observer, Chris Lamberti, published a post in March about the Council’s decision to support construction of the soon-to-be home of the Birmingham Barons, Regions Field, across the street from Railroad Park. In it, he points to Royal questioning the vote to publicly finance the project as the voice of reason.
There are a few things that need to be cleared up based on what was mentioned in that post though. The $60 million+ price tag always mentioned always includes construction of a Negro League museum adjacent to the park. The construction of the museum never seems to be questioned, even though the existence of the National Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas, City, MO (as we mentioned back in 2008 when the idea for such a facility was first brought up on a City Council agenda) seems to make it more of an “it’d be nice to have” than a “we’d have something unique” amenity for the city. This doesn’t even take into account the fact that the facility in Kansas City was designated as the national museum by Congress back in 2006, so we’ll be competing with a facility that draws 60,000+ visitors a year located in the city that served as headquarters for the Negro Leagues…
The author also only points to one city in the state of Alabama for his argument about new ballparks failing in downtown areas. There was no discussion of Montgomery’s Riverwalk Stadium, a renovation of the city’s roundhouse or a look at the Huntsville Stars’ home, Joe W. Davis Stadium. It may have helped (or hurt) the contention about downtown development based on ballparks, but whether a project is successful or not, it takes a lot longer than people think, despite our desire to see things happen yesterday.
It may have helped if there was a closer look taken at the underlying philosophy of encouraging development that spurs retail and commercial being the unfair taxation system currently in place in Alabama (thanks in part to its state constitution – the longest in the world). The idea that more retail establishments would provide more revenue makes sense when you know that’s how the state generates its revenue – rather than a system more reliant on property taxes. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do, though it’s tough for a community suffering through The Great Recession to want to spend money on what many would conceive as a luxury item.
All of that is to suggest that while the council president might have been informed of additional information in both cases, it wasn’t quite clear to a lot of us exactly how he drew his conclusions. If there’s another factor more reasonable to consider for moving the location of a project that would be federally funded, it would help the public if it were shared instead of operating in the realm of the “we know more information that you do” approach alluded to during yesterday’s debate. The electorate votes officials into office not because they know better, but because we trust they will do the right thing and inform their constituents accordingly. Those are actually two distinct statements.
If “The People Are The City” as we suggest via the phrase hanging on the inside of the door of the council chambers, you need to trust the people – on both sides of the equation. Maybe we need to recreate that phrase on the outside of the council chambers so we’re all reminded of that fact as we enter.
André Natta is The Terminal’s stationmaster.
Photo: Roderick Royal in 2007. Bob Farley/f8photo
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