Tag Archives: increase

On the agenda: Vulcan, jazz and transit

New Birmingham, Alabama logoThis morning’s Birmingham City Council agenda is the longest in some time, consisting of some 44 pages.

Item 21 asks the Council to approve an amendment to their contract with the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority (better known to most of us as MAX). It would allow the council to provide up to an additional $3 million to the cash-strapped agency, increasing their allocation to more than $8 million. The routes and hours are to be established by the City Council Transportation Committee.

Item 28 gives us a first glance at the Jazz in the Park Concerts sponsored by Magic City Smooth Jazz. The free concerts would be held every Sunday from July 4-25, 2010 at several locations throughout the city. The item includes the city agreeing to provide up to $10,000 towards the cost of the series.

Item 33 allows The Big Guy atop Red Mountain to have some necessary repair work done to his pedestal. Vulcan Painters of Bessemer submitted the low (and only) bid of $27,672 and acceptance of the item allows repair work to the pedestal to proceed.

The meetings are streamed live via the city’s website and archived.

Parking rates go up today in Birmingham

Folks looking for a parking space around Birmingham today may notice that it will most likely be costing them a little more to do so. Last week The Birmingham News reported that parking rates are going up; city officials hope that new parking meter mechanisms will be installed by the end of the year allowing them to double parking fees at 30 minute, 2-hour and 3-hour meters. Municipal parking deck and lot charges in the city center and at the airport will also be going up starting today. Don’t forget that parking ticket rates went up last year, with last July serving as the first of two months of amnesty for those with unpaid citations.

Photo: André Natta/bhamterminal.com

The rates went up, the birds are gone

Electric Meter on the Back of the House, MRBECK/FlickrHere’s to hoping that Alabama Power‘s long time spokesbirds, Ben and Mickey, enjoy their permanent trip south for the winter. The state’s Public Service Commission asked that the public utility reduce the amount of advertising they do and focus any new ones on encouraging energy efficiency and conservation. Those will be words that many more APCO customers will embrace as the PSC approved a base connection fee that will raise the average customer bill by $15/month starting in January. That’s after an 8.3% rate increase starting with your next bill raising bills an average of $9.30/month. The good news is that we won’t see another rate increase until 2010.

Photo: Electric Meter on the Back of the House, MRBECK/Flickr

Don’t mail that letter just yet…

You may want to make sure that you’ve got that extra 1¢ on your envelope. Starting today the United States Postal Service will increase rates across the board for postage while offering discounts for those that use their online services.

So you’ve got until whenever you don’t feel like going out by the post office to pick up some Forever Stamps before the rates go up again next May or you can check out this new (and exhaustive) list of rates and services that went into effect this morning. And since they can now raise postage rates every year, you may also want to make that online purchase of that Black Terminal T that you want us to mail to you so we can take advantage of that lower rate Wink (we’re just saying…)