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Birmingham's largest block party?

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There are always several ways to look at a situation, and there is no question that City Stages 20 will be second-guessed by every Monday morning events planning quarterback in the region for at least the next 2-3 months as we await the public release of the organization’s financials.

I’ll freely admit that I only attended the festival for about four hours on Saturday – time I desperately needed away from this computer to remind myself of what the real world might be like. I heard nothing but praise from folks I knew that had actually attended Friday night and danced along to Diana Ross, The Roots, Galactic and probably the biggest surprise of the evening to many, The Carolina Chocolate Drops. Later on I got to watch as Buddy Guy decided to come on down and play among the thousands that showed up to watch him after catching the end of the Hill Country Revue set.

I’ve come to think that perhaps the purpose of the festival needs to change, at least mentally. I’m not sure that one can say that it’s an event that represents the cultural heritage of metro Birmingham anymore (though getting Ross to play this year was a coup). I would say that it is a great collection of acts that many feel should be coming to our fair city anyway (and some of them do), available to us for a reasonable price.

I heard a television reporter call it Birmingham’s largest block party. That may be a better way to describe what it’s become.

It’s become an excuse for people to come together and hear great music; to see folks that you don’t run into as much anymore and catch up. In the near future it will also be an excuse for those that still think it’s not safe to come downtown to poke around between acts and see the progress that continues to take place.

I also think that it can claim that something that should be a major goal of the festival’s – exposing the City of Birmingham and the surrounding region to acts that you normally wouldn’t see or be exposed to (e.g., the Carolina Chocolate Drops).

It will never be Lollapalooza or Bonnaroo and honestly, I’m glad. If I want those types of events, I’ll find a way to go there instead. The thing is, no matter what you hear said positively about our festival, and on a larger scale this city, there will always be someone that says that you’re not being realistic or serious – that it’s bad and it will always stay that way, no matter what’s done.

I’d argue that it’s that attitude that needs to change, though some more interaction with those that could make City Stages more successful in the coming years would help. The conversations about the future of the festival have been held all over the place, including the blogosphere, forever. Harnessing it in one place, presumably a revamped version of their site, may give residents more perceived ownership of the festival, including enabling the festival to engage its fans in the selection process and allowing organizers to expose the fans to the music that will be coming. It could be a microcosm of what could be done to truly move the city forward as well, but It’s just one suggestion and it probably won’t be the last one either party hears.

That said, I am looking forward to next year, just to see what can happen…

André Natta is the managing editor of The Terminal.

Well, at least we're talking about it

“Nobody is trying to deny the seriousness of getting this under control, but does it have to be on a billboard?”

– Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford

Yes, as a matter of fact Larry, it does.

But apparently making Jefferson County residents aware of a syphilis outbreak is more of a detriment to our efforts for attracting new businesses into the region than a necessity to make sure that it does not become worse than it already is. In case you didn’t see Saturday’s Birmingham News story, two of our elected leaders feel as though bus advertisements calling attention to the fact that we have the #1 concentration of syphilis cases in the United States were portraying a bad image for the region (among other things).

While they are only removing ads announcing the outbreak off of the sides of buses, it takes away a valuable tool available to the Jefferson County Department of Health in this battle of educating the public, one that they should be commended for. It was doing what it was supposed to do – catching the attention of those that saw the signs even if only for a few seconds at a time.

If there is anyone that understands the importance of catching the attention of people in short, simple sound bites, it is the current mayor of the city of Birmingham. Mayor Langford provides just enough information to pique our interest and then he moves on to the next 6 or 7 things on his agenda. We stay just confused and bombarded long enough for the next idea to be planted and then the questions that need to be raised never are. It’s a shame, since some conversation may actually make some of these ideas better. In this case it’s a real shame that he doesn’t realize that the Department of Heath is simply taking a page out of his play book.

He’s done something again, only this time it’s something that could become a bigger issue if not handled properly. I’d like to know if he and Commissioner Fine-Collins plan to have the health department remove the billboards and television ads as well? If so, we’re going to use taxpayer dollars to remove ads that were partially paid for by taxpayer dollars trying to educate the taxpayers about a serious issue — like the logic?

Maybe he has a secret plan to use that bully pulpit that mayors possess to make sure that more people are aware…

Maybe.

Maybe spending taxpayer dollars to sweep one of our regions issues under the rug could be better spent making sure that we dealt with the outbreak appropriately, making sure that everyone was aware of the issue.

The problem with both of those solutions is that they sound too logical.

As a city recognized as a national leader in medical research, maybe the idea of making people aware of the issue constitutes our area hospitals and medical leaders doing the job that they are best known for. And it’s not like the ads haven’t had an effect, it has encouraged more people to go in and be tested for symptoms.

We can’t call the kettle black without making sure that we air all of our dirty laundry as well. We’d actually had a story prepared about the outbreak more than a month ago; however we were waiting for a list of current solutions that were being undertaken to be completed before putting it up on the site. We felt as though that was most important – making sure that solutions were presented. Unfortunately, most of us are only now writing about the issue because Mr. Langford and Ms. Fine-Collins finally gave us a reason to do so.

So we decided to run the story this morning (if you didn’t come here directly from the post, head on over to the Newsstand to take a look). Even if you feel as though this issue cannot hit you personally, it is important enough to the overall health of our region to take a good, hard look at it and what can be done to assist with handling it.

So maybe recent stories about Birmingham’s potential are just not powerful enough to overcome this outbreak as selling points, at least in the eyes of our city’s chief executive. But I think I’d rather have folks coming in to join this transplant in a movement to make the city a better place than have them wonder why we hadn’t accepted the situation and admitted to it up front — completely.

André Natta is the managing editor of The Terminal.

A Park-ner-ship for the Future

Much has been said about Birmingham’s ample green space. And it is ample – more than, in fact. To put it simply, we love parks. Parks are a big deal here, and likely to get bigger when we start connecting them all, one to another. But that’s jumping ahead.

Birmingham is a very green city and region – literally. We are doing better these days in the environmental sense of the word also, but for just pure color, green is it in Birmingham. You couldn’t count the shades of green I can see out of my living room or office window. We are blessed with green trees (many of them pines), green shrubery, green-coated mountains and valleys, the underbrush is green (especially in the kudzu growing season), we’re blessed with acres and acres of green grass, green foliage. We even adore fried “green” tomatoes. Face it – we’re green!

Our tradition of dedicating parks to preserve all that green space dates back to the 1920s to the city’s decision to create a Birmingham Park and Recreation Board and to hire the noted Olmstead landscaping firm to create a plan for preserving and enhancing our many parks and open spaces. The firm had a notable track record even then, having developed plans for park space in cities such as Boston and Baltimore. Their recommendation was comprehensive and highly detailed, and you may read about the vision set forth in the Olmstead report in “The Olmstead Vision: Parks for Birmingham,” published by the Birmingham Historical Society in 2006.

At the core of the Olmstead vision was the idea of preserving green space along the streams that flowed through our valleys. In fact, the ridge and valley topography of the Birmingham region lent itself to this concept and is today why there is at least some park space preserved along the Shades Creek Greenway adjacent to Lakeshore Drive in Homewood. Similar plans are in place for greenways along Village Creek and Valley Creek and the preservation of land in the Turkey Creek watershed is continuing. The Olmstead report envisioned the set-aside of land around the creeks and the preservation of that land (and, thus, the preservation of the quality of the water as well).

The creation of some entirely new parks also has gained the public’s attention in recent years, stepped up dramatically in 2006 when United States Steel announced its largest corporate philanthropic gift ever. The steel company agreed to sell more than 2,000 acres of wooded land along the ridge of Red Mountain to a non-profit trust – and offered it at roughly a 50% discount to the appraised value of the land. In addition, U. S. Steel stroked a check in the amount of $1 million to help the park planners get started with their operations. Imagine park space larger than New York City’s Central Park connecting Birmingham to Bessemer along the ridge of Red Mountain where iron ore mines once fed the mills of Jones Valley.

In the city center, just south of the Morris Avenue railroad tracks, a smaller but equally strategic space has been dedicated as a park and preparation for construction is under way there. The Railroad Reservation Park will extend along the south side of the tracks at Morris Avenue two blocks to 2nd Avenue South and east-west between 18th and 14th streets. This park will feature grassy areas, a lake with paddle boats, walking paths and a pedestrian overpass from the park to the soon-to-be-built intermodal transit center on Morris Avenue.

In East Birmingham, the Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve sits astride Ruffner Mountain – 1,100 acress of woodlands and trails criss-crossing the ridge of the mountain and connecting old mining sites. A new nature center is being constructed with federal funds and park supporters are raising additional funds to add a new 500-acre tract to the park’s holdings.

South of Birmingham is the large Oak Mountain State park, and to our West is Tannehill State Park. Dotted across our landscape are literally hundreds of smaller municipal and “pocket” parks.

In Pittsburgh a couple of years ago, some of us had an opportunity to learn about that city’s parks program and the “string of pearls” concept – an idea that’s also being implemented here. The idea is that parks exist to be enjoyed, and that perhaps linking the park or green spaces can amplify that enjoyment. Thus, a series of walking, hiking, biking trails has been developed (a la the Shades Creek Greenway) to connect the parks – as a string is used to connect pearls. A day can easily be envisioned when one could (if one wished) walk, run or hike from Tannehill State Park on the Tuscaloosa County line through the Red Mountain Park, along greenways to the Railroad Reservation Park, continuing on rail rights-of-way to Ruffner Mountain and, ultimately, on to Cheaha Mountain and the Appalachian Trail.

And why, exactly, is this important? Aside from the enjoyment a park offers, the enhancement of quality of life, the preservation of land and water quality and the general benefits to our health and well-being, setting aside parks and green spaces say something to us about the future. Taking these actions in the 1920s was a way for our forefathers to ensure the sustainability of the city and region while staking a claim to the economic growth that followed. Want a better economy? Build a park and improve people’s lives. Seems to me that the same equation works today, and as we preserve and enjoy the new spaces, we’re making a positive statement about the future we all hope to share in this really green place.

Barry Copeland is executive vice president of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce. Check out his blog over at Positively 20th Street, where this entry was originally posted on April 21.

Proclaiming the real issues

Andre Natta headshotThe inboxes at The Terminal received several emails late yesterday afternoon, a couple of them including the responses received by two citizens after they sent in their concerns to Mayor Langford’s office about his proclamation declaring this coming Saturday a citywide day of prayer in sackcloth and ashes. They’re posted over here.

After sleeping on it, maybe I’m not that worried about Saturday evening at Fair Park Arena Friday evening at Boutwell Auditorium – mainly because I’m not sure that getting upset and frustrated will do much to solve the issue at hand. After reading the emails and the responses, it’s clear that there will be no consensus on the issue any time soon.

Now the typos in the proclamation – they bother me. I still haven’t quite gotten to über wordsmith status, but I’ve written more than enough posts to know that what you put out there on paper – whether as a hard copy or virtually, is a visual representation of you as a person. The typos and grammatical errors found in both the proclamation and the email responses from City Hall yesterday speak more about the attention to detail paid to the issues affecting our city currently.

There are times when the Is are dotted and the Ts are crossed, and there are other times when the intention is understood but the follow-through is questionable.

There is no question that the city of Birmingham needs to come together to address the crime epidemic that has us listed as the sixth most dangerous city per capita in the United States by some.

Yes, there is a major role that our area’s religious leaders need to play in getting us out of the moral cesspool that is our inability to believe that life can get better in Birmingham. This is despite the fact that the hours of worship are still one of the most segregated and divisive times in our society today, both in terms of denomination and race (but that’s another post).

Yes, there is even a need for the man that holds the biggest and loudest bully pulpit in the city to use his influence to encourage this dialogue to take place. He could even show up at an event like the one he’s announced for Saturday in his role as the leader of the city and speak of how he supports an initiative.

But I’m certainly not sure if he should be organizing the event himself, whether the money being used to pay for the sackcloth is donated or not.

Everyone agrees that something needs to be done to quell this issue. Langford’s police chief admits that there’s not necessarily a one-solution fixes all approach, but I think that his philosophy is more along the lines of what needs to be the focus of the problem as it exists now.

It’s not that we don’t like some of the things that Mayor Langford is doing. Yesterday’s proposal to pay for city bus services as the heat of the summer and the pain of paying higher prices at the pump both begin to expose themselves to the people of Birmingham was something desperately needed. But as mentioned in today’s Birmingham News article, this proposal will not necessarily encourage new riders to begin to use the system – though taking advantage of rising gas prices to get the word out may just be the incentive needed to expand ridership. Maybe then there would be more voices lent to the case made by the Transit Advisory Committee to improve the system that we currently have.

The ideas are great, however (as we’ve learned here during our short existence) sometimes it’s better to pay attention to the content of the message instead of how it’s being packaged for the audience receiving it.

André Natta is the publisher and managing editor of The Terminal.

What do you think? Let’s hear your thoughts about it over on Magic City Question!

With apologies to Mr. Dylan…

Editor’s note: Today’s my Birmingham guest blogger is Barry Copeland.

Barry Copeland - Bob Farley/f8PhotoWhen Bob Dylan’s famous lament on the nature of hypocrisy first made the charts, those of us who are now called Baby Boomers memorized all the words. Positively 4th Street pretty much laid it all bare and Dylan’s words seemed to capture what we in the 60s thought typified the hypocracy we saw all around us – in the media, in the government, in any institution with authority. What could sum up the youthful, disillusioned attitude of those watershed years better than, “You’ve got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend. When I was down, you just stood there grinning!”

Those who observe the passing scene on 20th Street in downtown Birmingham today could make an effective case that we’ve just rolled back the clock 40 years. It’s 1968 all over again, and it seems as though everything that has been happening in my town is bad. Not just bad, in fact, it’s awful. It’s almost as if you could pick an issue – any issue – and bet safely that it’ll be the subject of conversation somewhere in some forum in the coming week. The issue could be elected officials, or proposed projects, the actions (or inactions) of any legislative body, our environment, our schools, our businesses, our infrastructure. The list of negative things to cuss and discuss is endless. I think, in fact, that we may be at the point now where an alternative view is not only a pleasant change – it’s becomming essential for the maintenance of our collective regional sanity.

So, with apologies to Mr. Dylan – and consistent with a move up to 20th Street (the most important street in Alabama, I would offer) – here is Vol. 1, No. 1 of Positively 20th Street. And let the emphasis be on the word Positively for that’s what this little blog will be about. What’s good in Birmingham.

I like the idea of the city’s “Believe in Birmingham” web site, and I like what Mayor Langford says on the site. “We can’t expect anyone to believe in us until we believe in ourselves.” Amen! Admittedly my view is limited, but I’m convinced there are many great things happening in Birmingham these days that deserve a forum, and that is the intended purpose of “Positively 20th Street.”

Here’s one such conversation starter, with the promise of more to come in future posts. Do you know that the UAB community is now about the size of the city of Gadsden? Actually, on any given day, UAB now claims approximately 17,300 students and another 18,000 faculty, staff, physicians, etc. Add to that about 786 patients a day, on average, and their families, and you have Gadsden. It’s a very fluid population, but the economic impact is hard to ignore – and we ignore it at our peril. UAB’s economic impact is now about 12-to-1, meaning, In layman’s terms, that for every dollar the state invests in UAB, roughly $12 will be returned into Birmingham and Alabama’s economy. So when the state invests $50 million, as it agreed to do last year, the impact of that investment in our region and state, over time, is something in the neighborhood of $600 million. What’s not to love about that?

UAB – and so much more – is good for Birmingham. And to that point, you may expect more – later.

Barry Copeland is executive vice president of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce. Check out his blog over at Positively 20th Street, where this entry was originally posted on April 14. Head on over there and share your comments on this first post (or you can let him know through our comments section).

Let's dream those dreams

Today’s Birmingham News sings the praises of the Railroad Reservation Park’s pending construction (interesting how the name keeps getting shorter depending on where you look). I would go one step further than they did in their description. It is in fact an example not just of what the city center can and will become, but what can happen throughout the city and the region if people show faith in the potential success in a project. Three parks, one currently operating and two beginning to see the light of day, benefited in part thanks to the efforts of the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham and their belief that projects like these needed to be done and supported.

The organization announced a new initiative during its annual meeting on Thursday evening that would enable more projects like “Birmingham’s Central Park”, Ruffner Mountain Nature Center‘s expansion and Red Mountain Park‘s creation to become reality. The Community Catalyst Fund serves as an opportunity for Birmingham to dream bigger than it ever has before and achieve those dreams for ourselves and future generations.

The possibilities for these unrestricted funds are only as limited as your mind allows it to be. Many projects seem to die a slow death here only because you cannot see past the naysayers. What if we had the ability to seed an arts funding source that could encourage murals, ecoscapes and galleries throughout the region?

What if the money existed to help jump start a facade improvement program that could augment existing dollars for building rehabilitation, enabling a community to put its best face forward to those that did not believe the rumors of its pending rebirth?

What if the money were used to encourage alternative transportation methods in the region, while allowing Birmingham to become more viable for the large manufacturing plants that many seem to think is needed?

What if the money were available to bring even bigger exhibits to an expanded Museum of Art, encouraging a truer sense of collaboration among our existing cultural facilities? Or if resources were made available for more of the metropolitan area’s growing arts community to create and display their work, no matter what it is?

Is it not time to stop pointing the finger at what is wrong and instead roll up our sleeves and ask what needs to be done to make it better?

The News said that much more fund raising lies ahead for the Railroad Reservation Park. A city that once mined for ore should also be mining for ideas as it reaches forward into the 21st century and carves a space out as a leader – one that it has always had among some, but now also in the hearts of those that call it home. City, county, state and federal officials should (and have) been willing to support projects with their access to general funds, but we cannot ask them to lead the way by themselves anymore.

Hopefully when we’re asked to answer the bell, we are ready to provide the energy and the monies necessary to power the engine for the future of The Magic City. The new Community Catalyst Fund is one way to do just that. Check it out and see what you can do to help some more of that magic make some dreams come true.

NOTE: Let us know what your big dream for Birmingham is over on Magic City Question

André Natta is the publisher and managing editor of The Terminal.

A dream fulfilled?

Editor’s note: This is the first of two editorials written today about 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It was written by The Terminal’s editorial assistant for this spring, Leah Walcott. Ms. Walcott is currently a senior at Miles College in Fairfield, AL.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullifications; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and girls as sisters and brothers…”

– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., March on Washington 1963.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We would like to celebrate his life and the many achievements that he made in Birmingham. As I sit back to read the famous “I Have a Dream” speech given August 28, 1963, I ask myself is Dr. King’s dream actually fulfilled here in the birth place of Civil Rights. For the most part it is, but there still is much to be desired.

African Americans are allowed to vote, sit anywhere they want, drink from the same water fountain as Caucasians, and date outside their race without getting grief from the public. Young African Americans are able to attend schools with Caucasian children, and they are able to interact with them freely. However I believe, Dr. King would be disappointed to see the violence between African Americans here in our city. He would be disappointed to see that some of our fathers are not taking care of their responsibilities, and leaving mothers to raise their children on their own. It’s sad that so many people take for granted their right to vote, and they feel as though their vote does not count.

He would be shocked to see that schools in the city of Birmingham are infested with violence and teen pregnancy, and the teaching materials are sub-standard compared to other schools.

The neighborhoods on the western side of town are dead. Those places that were once places of refuge have become empty, unused, abandoned buildings.

Even though the racial problems have digressed, we still have other problems to face such as teen pregnancy, the high syphilis rate in Jefferson County, black on black crime and domestic violence.

So I ask you – do you feel Dr. King’s dream is fulfilled?