A quick glance at today’s Birmingham City Council agenda gives you the impression that it’s all about getting and moving things around. There are ordinances securing our transit authority’s operating contract (Item 10) providing additional funds for the system (Item 6); allowing for Alagasco to get around town (Item 7); securing an incentive for the relocation of Intermark’s 110 employees to the former Rogers Trading Company building; allowing for Jim Burke Automotive to consolidate more of their dealerships downtown (Item 5). There’s even one approving plans to move forward on making it a more attractive drive down one of our streets (14th Street North – Item 15).
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On the agenda: It’s about getting around today
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Tagged AL, Alabama, Birmingham, City Council, On the agenda, road, Transit, transportation
On the agenda: a lot actually
This morning’s City Council meeting is going to be interesting. Two new establishments that we’ve recently written about, Bonedaddy’s (soon to be Sweet Bones Alabama) and Black Market Bar, are on the consent agenda currently for receipt of their restaurant retail liquor licenses. For those that haven’t figured out where The Black Market will be, the address is 3411 Colonnade Parkway, Suite 800.
Several city agencies that have contracts with the city including Urban Impact, Main Street Birmingham and the BIrmingham Business Resource Center are poised to have them renewed. The biggest news that will come out of this morning’s meeting will probably not be what’s on the agenda, but what is not. Mayor Langford is prepared to ask the council to support a proposal for electronic bingo – an item that is currently legal in 6 of the counties in the state. In addition, he is asking the council via an addendum item to support a grant application to implement a Civil Rights Trail in the city.
We’ll see what happens.
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Tagged agenda, AL, Alabama, Birmingham, City Council, On the agenda
On the agenda: Shortening of meetings begin
It’s a fairly quiet agenda for our city councilors here in Birmingham today, with item 6 addressing an issue that has been getting a lot of attention recently. Last week’s City Council meeting lasted nearly seven hours, definitely giving a reason for the council president to submit a proposal moving all Council presentations and commendations to the first Council meeting of each month. It had been included in last week’s agenda but a vote was delayed.
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On the agenda: Festival season’s upon us
This morning’s council agenda reminds us that the festival season is already here. Two items on the agenda cover two of Birmingham’s more popular festivals. Item 21 is on consent (and hopefully it stays there) and provides the Function at Tuxedo Junction Jazz Festival $27,000 for its 2008 edition in Erskine Hawkins Park in the city’s Ensley community. Item 26 is also on consent and amends the contract between the city and the organization responsible for City Stages, increasing the amount received by the festival from $200,000 t0 $700,000.
Item 66 should be an opportunity to remind people about this Friday’s Relay for Life of Urban Birmingham being held at Legion Field. BTW, it goes from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. and there’s still time to give.
There are also items that call for a feasibility study to determine a location for the proposed Negro League Baseball Association Museum (item 33 – there is already a nationally designated Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO); as well as one (item 27 – also on consent) that could lead to some interesting discussion considering one of the stories in today’s Birmingham News.
Check out the agenda and the online broadcast of the meeting on the city’s website.
On the agenda: Money, development, money (and anger)
So the big news for this morning’s City Council meeting is not necessarily one that is on the agenda, but an item that will be brought up during Mayor Langford’s comments, at least according to this morning’s Birmingham News. They reported that the mayor, upset with City Councilor Valerie Abbott over the situation represented in this video (use of a city car), will be pulling his compromise plan for the former Knights of Columbus property in Glen Iris, frustrating a community that one could say was already quite frustrated. This will allow Formation Methods the opportunity to develop apartments on the property. Check out the links and see what you think.
Now on to the agenda…
On the agenda: The disparity study finally moves forward
So besides the 684 properties on this morning’s City Council meeting for having “noxious and dangerous weeds” (that’s got to be some kind of record), there is one issue that for some has taken way too long to finally reach the dais: a resolution adopting the results of the long referenced disparity study commissioned by the Council during the Kincaid administration.
There are four items on the agenda relating to the study (items 11 – 14): one that would adopt the findings; two that would authorize the Council’s economic development committee to create and appoint members to a sub-committee to create an implementation plan based on the results of the study; and one to approve The Freeman Group, LLC to facilitate the sub-committee’s planning efforts (for fees not to exceed $20,000).
It will definitely be interesting to see how the results are used to deal with this important issue in the city.
You can always watch the meeting at your desk on the city’s website; the fun starts at 9:30 a.m.
Posted in On the agenda, politics
Tagged Alabama, Birmingham, City Council, disparity study, information, On the agenda, plans
On the agenda: Speechless?
You could say that people in Birmingham, AL would be that way yesterday after learning that while Trinity Medical Center prepares to move to property along U.S. 280 with an assist from the City of Birmingham (Item 30), Carraway Medical Center (yes, we’re still calling it Carraway) was going to close as a result of bankruptcy (and not without the city trying their best to save it as well) while word spread about plans for the an item on today’s agenda (Item 35) that calls for the next sitting council to receive a $20,000 raise in addition to another $10,000 added to their expense allowances (Item 36).
We were actually quiet due to some traveling from yours truly, though I found some time to write my thoughts on a couple of those issues over on my Birmingham this morning.
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