Tag Archives: City Council

Election ’09: Now the work begins

Posted on October 7, 2009 | 1 comment

I voted stickerThe people have spoken (well, only about 14.5% have – and that’s with the storm holding off until late last night – but that’s besides the point) and we now have a new Birmingham City Council ready to take office in late November. Last night’s runoff elections for the Council and school board seats were definitely interesting and led to some great discussions on Birmingham Weekly’s live blog coverage. Meanwhile, Wade on Birmingham provided a rundown of who ended up where as a result of yesterday’s activities. The Birmingham News reminds us this morning about the most closely watched of the races – the one involving City Council President Carole Smitherman and Citizens Advisory Board president Sheila Tyson.

Of course, if you want a recap of exactly how it went down, check out BhamWiki’s page on the election.

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On the agenda: More XOs and safety

Posted on September 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

This morning’s Birmingham City Council agenda includes a request from Mayor Langford for permission to purchase 1,530 more XO laptops (Item 8) and distribute them to grades 1-6 while providing additional training for teachers and parents (Item 9). The total cost for the purchase and implementation – This comes less than a month after UAB was awarded a two-year $1 million grant to help integrate the XO laptop into math and science curriculum for the city’s school system and it can be said that it has been a successful program.

The city will also be moving forward with matching the $11,923.60 provided by the U.S. Department of Justice’s bulletproof vest partnership program (Item 10) ensuring increased protection for municipal law enforcement officers.

We’re pretty sure that @bhamweekly will be providing play by play of today’s meeting on Twitter… not completely sure though…

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Posted in On the agenda

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Who’s running for City Council on August 25?

Posted on August 5, 2009 | 7 comments

New Birmingham, Alabama logoFolks had until yesterday to qualify for the August 25 municipal elections for Birmingham’s City Council and Board of Education. Runoffs if necessary would take place on October 6. That meant that I’ve spent most of today trying to find out how many of them have a web presence. The results follow below.

We start with the list of candidates running for City Council’s nine (9) representative seats. It starts after the jump.

BTW, no surprise, it’s a long one with 46 people qualifying by the deadline.

Continue reading →

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Report overgrown lots via your iPhone – soon

Posted on July 7, 2009 | Leave a comment

Mayor Langford announced this morning during his mayor’s report information about a digital expansion of the 23 in 23 Campaign, taking a cue from a similar online component that will soon be introduced in Boston, MA.

Both cities plans to launch smartphone  applications, with Boston’s planning to be launched shortly, to assist in the reporting of overgrown lots, graffiti, and other “neighborhood nuisances.” The Boston Globe reported yesterday on Boston’s plans and what residents in that city think about the potential to simply report issues with a snapshot and an upload. The tool sounds like it will help Mayor Menino in his long-term efforts (BTW – the mayor’s race is in full swing in Boston).

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UPDATE: City budget to be reworked to reflect deficit (yes, deficit)

Posted on July 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

New Birmingham, Alabama logoBirmingham Weekly is reporting via its Twitter feed that the City of Birmingham‘s figures actually reflect a $17 million deficit for 2009 and not a $13 million surplus that the new budget is based upon.

Reporters from the Weekly have been at the city’s budget workshop this afternoon where the City Council has asked that the budget be reworked to reflect the deficit while fulfilling their requests to not cut salaries – among other things.

Check out their Twitter feed for additional information.

UPDATE: Birmingham Weekly has now posted their own story on these recent developments as well as a response from City Council president Carole Smitherman after hearing about the deficit.

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Posted in City Council

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Election ’09: We’ve got a date!

Posted on June 24, 2009 | 3 comments

New Birmingham, Alabama logoWe learned yesterday that this year’s municipal elections in Birmingham will take place on August 25. The Birmingham Election Commission set the elections for City Council and the school board after it received approval from the U.S. Department of Justice last week. The decision means that we’ll be voting on the same day as much of the rest of the state this year.

We’re aware of several people who’ve already declared themselves as candidates in this year’s City Council races; we’ve even heard a few rumbles about the folks thinking about running for the school board seats.

Who do you know who’s announced their intentions to run?

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Posted in Election '09

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On the agenda: One laptop per councilor

Posted on June 10, 2009 | 2 comments

In case you missed it yesterday morning, Mayor Langford presented each of the members of the Birmingham City Council with an HP Mini notebook, comple with capability to connect to the Internet using WiFi and an AirCard courtesy of Verizon Wireless. They also received an 8 GB jump drive containing several city reports, including the budget that they are currently working on and a bag to carry it all in; Birmingham Weekly tweeted a description of the embroidered message. A series of classes will be offered for those councilors and city employees that are interested.

The Birmingham News pointed out the total cost of the expenditure in today’s paper, as well as the status of the budget that seems to have encouraged their distribution.

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