Behind the 8 Ball

Larry Langford’s wit and wisdom.




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March 20, 2008

Visitors to the WERC 960 AM web site (www.960werc.com/pages/langford8Ball.html) will find a Magic 8 Ball flanked by two images of Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford. One is of Langford in his days as a WBRC Channel 6 reporter, complete with towering Afro. The other is the modern-day Langford, the savvy political animal we know, his hands folded as if in prayer.

Click on the ball to hear audio clips of various Langfordisms such as “Larry likes to move quickly without thinking,” “It’s gotta be something in hell we want, because we’re fightin’ so hard to get there,” “Mayberry R.F.D.—that’s all we are,” and “Do something, do anything.”

A Day at the Races

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A Day at the Races

The Birmingham International Raceway resumes its racing schedule on April 5.

By Ed Reynolds

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March 20, 2008

For a racetrack that launched several of the greatest names in stock car racing history, the Birmingham International Raceway (BIR) is sadly neglected by locals, many of whom don’t know the history behind the half-mile racing facility that surrounds a high school football field in Five Points West. Only the fabled Milwaukee Mile has been in existence longer on active U.S. racing circuits. BIR is older than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.Originally constructed as a one-mile dirt horsetrack, the Fairgrounds racing oval was hosting motorcycle races by 1906. The 10,000-seat grandstand was built in 1925, the same year that legendary automobile pioneers the Chevrolet brothers unveiled a prototype dirt-track car at BIR to 30,000 patrons. The track was reduced to half a mile in 1932. In those days, most races were held in conjunction with the state fair. It wasn’t until the 1940s, when J.P. Rotton began promoting featured races, that weekly racing became popular. A.J. Foyt brought Indianapolis 500-style open-wheel cars to BIR when they toured short tracks across the country in the 1950s. Stars Fireball Roberts and Richard Petty raced there when it was a regular stop on NASCAR’s former 60-race schedule. (NASCAR now runs 36 races a year.)




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In the early 1960s, BIR underwent a facelift. The speedway was paved, proper lighting was installed, and Sunday afternoon races were moved to Friday night. Red Farmer, Bobby Allison, and Donnie Allison were winning at BIR in those days, establishing the “Alabama Gang” legend after the trio relocated to Hueytown from Miami. (Track promoters reportedly made Farmer start races from the last position because he had become so dominant at the track.) Hueytown was considered the Mecca of stock car racing through the early 1990s until the deaths of late-addition Alabama Gang members Neil Bonnett and Davey Allison.

The most often repeated BIR legend concerns the night that Nero Steptoe, losing a wheel just laps before the end of a race that he was leading, won on three wheels. Trackside fights, some involving wrenches, were common until the mid-1980s. One crew chief summed up the prevailing attitude of the time when he said “we can swap paint on the track or swap skin in the pits.” Birmingham bar owner T.C. Cannon, who raced at BIR in the 1960s and 1970s said, “We’d race a while, then we’d fight a while.”

If you have a taste for loud, colorful fun, BIR is still a great place to take a date on a Friday night. Weekend racing resumes April 5 with the Steel City 100. Call 781-2471 or go to www.bir-raceway.com. &

A Killer’s Last Friend

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A Killer’s Last Friend

By Ed Reynolds

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March 06, 2008

Sister Helen Prejean, the nun portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking, will speak in Birmingham on March 31. Prejean, an anti-death penalty activist, endorses a philosophy called the Consistent Life Ethic that opposes the death penalty, abortion, assisted suicide, and “unjust” warfare.

Sometimes branded “the Mother Teresa of Death Row,” Prejean has written two books. One advocates abolishing the death penalty (Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States) and the other defends those executed whom Prejean believes were innocent (The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions). Prejean also counsels victims’ families even as she embraces the killers. Initially ambivalent about being involved in the film because women in her position had been frequently portrayed as “flying and singing nuns,” Prejean reportedly warned Dead Man Walking producer Tim Robbins, “Boy, you better get the nuns right in this! We haven’t had a good film about nuns since The Bells of St. Mary’s.“

Prejean will be featured at the Willimon Faith and Ethics Lecture at Birmingham-Southern College on March 31 at 4 p.m. Later that evening, Prejean will share her thoughts at 7 p.m. at Highlands United Methodist Church.

Forging Ahead

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Forging Ahead

The Forge, Birmingham’s proposed downtown entertainment district, continues to seek financing.

By Ed Reynolds

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March 06, 2008

At the February 22 Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex board meeting, board members were informed by BJCC executive director Jack Fields that John Elkington, CEO of Performa Entertainment Real Estate, was ahead of schedule in meeting benchmarks to begin building the 176,000-square-foot downtown entertainment district recently named “The Forge.” (It was temporarily known as “The District.”) Dismissing reports that Elkington was lagging behind in fulfilling his commitments, Fields told the board of directors: “According to the agreement that was signed on the fifth of May [2007], if we take every one of those steps that is outlined in that agreement, then Mr. Elkington is not behind. He is ahead . . . I think Mr. Elkington, in his exuberance, has sometimes placed some timelines on himself that are far beyond what is in the agreement. For our purposes for right now, he is ahead of the timelines that are specified.” Elkington reportedly has met requirements that 50 percent of the square footage be pre-leased. Nevertheless, the process of securing financing for the development has been slower than predicted. Three months ago, Fields told Black & White, “It’s been a bummer, no question about that, but we don’t see that this is anything that would affect the continuation of the development. . . . According to Mr. Elkington, he feels that if he gets his lending package and the approval of it by the first week of February—that’s the goal—then we are still right on schedule to open in June or July of 2009, with a 14-month construction period.”

Even with a projected total cost for a new downtown entertainment district ballooning from $25 million to $50 million, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex board seems untroubled about the prospects of financing the project.

Fields told board members on February 22 that Elkington would instead have financing in place by the end of March. In a February 29 interview, Fields was confident that all is well. “I know that there is continued progress going on. Obviously, we have great concern about that, so we keep up, and we are very pleased with his progress,” he said. “Normally, the most difficulty that developers have is getting the equity. So if his equity is on the line and is ready to go, that really bodes well.” The Performa president has reportedly cleared that hurdle, according to Fields. “What Mr. Elkington has stated is that he [has] obtained $6 million equity—has arranged his equity with the lenders—and he would be entering into a loan that would be $24 or $25 million . . . that’s toward the entertainment center, not the hotels. If you put the hotels in it we’re talking about much, much more money than $31 million.” The BJCC and Performa signed a $25 million contract in May 2007, but cost estimates for the entertainment, dining, and retail area have increased to $40 to $50 million. The projected total cost, including two hotels, is now $80 million.

In November of 2007, it was widely reported that a 130,000-square-foot retail and entertainment complex that Performa planned for Trenton, New Jersey, had failed to obtain a $21.8 million loan. (Performa projects in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi, have also failed to come to fruition.) The Trenton development had been scheduled to open in late 2007. Elkington blamed unemployment and tighter bank lending requirements for that setback. Stricter lending standards have also been cited by Elkington for delays on gaining funds for the Birmingham entertainment district.

In mid-January, the BJCC board traveled to Memphis for a business retreat. The city is home to Performa’s flagship development, the revitalized Beale Street entertainment area. “What impresses me about Beale Street is the constant activity that takes place on it,” said Fields regarding the trip. “What I really am encouraged about as far as our development is that, with Beale Street, [Elkington] was basically confined to a definite layout and a definite framework to work with. Whereas here, he has a clean slate where he can optimize the design, traffic flow, and can create as much synergy as you possibly can in a development. . . . And of course Beale Street is what it is, and that is blues and rhythm and blues, and barbecue and things like that. Whereas here it’ll be a much, much broader offering of music and cuisine.”

• • •font size=”5″In other business at the BJCC board’s February 22 meeting, members approved the funding of a feasibility study to investigate the lowering of a brief stretch of Interstate 59/20 near the BJCC below ground level. (If approved, 80 percent of the needed funds would probably be provided by the federal government.) The current elevated portion of I-59/20 is deteriorating, according to Operation New Birmingham (ONB) Vice President of planning Chris Hatcher, who said that the highway is in the final third of its life and will have to undergo repair anyway.

The board voted 4-2 to invest $35,000 in the study, which would explore whether an entrenched I-59/20 is financially and physically possible. Those board members opposed to the study called it a waste of money, believing that the federal government will simply ignore any research results and reconstruct the highway as it pleases. ONB has been pushing for the interstate to be set in a mammoth gully no deeper than 40 feet, according to Hatcher. The plan would allow for the city’s street grid layout to be retained via bridges. Two decks above the highway are also proposed, one near the Birmingham Museum of Art and the other near the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Hatcher told the board that those two entities would be asked to contribute to the $100,000 feasibility study, as well.

BJCC executive director Jack Fields said burying the interstate will offer advantages for The Forge entertainment district. “[The interstate] is really not creating that much of a physical obstruction as far as traffic because you can move underneath it back and forth,” said Fields. “But it’s just the visual obstruction that seems to psychologically provide a separation between the rest of downtown and the BJCC. In other words, [the BJCC and The Forge] is on the other side of the tracks. . . . Where the entertainment center will get the most visibility is really in that 280 connection coming into I-59/I-20. That’s where it’s going to hit you like crazy.”

“Channel, ditch . . . trench” is how ONB president Mike Calvert described the proposed burial of the interstate, adding, “But it would be, for the most part, open above.” He echoed Fields’ affirmation of the project. “The big advantage is that the elevated highway is at least a psychological barrier to the connection between the BJCC complex and the rest of downtown,” said Calvert. “Now, you can walk underneath that, but it is very unpleasant as far as the trucks kind of thundering over your head. And visually it would disappear. And it’s our understanding that the sound would be directed, for the most part, upwards rather than emanating horizontally.” &

City Hall section — Langford’s Way

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Langford’s Way

Mayor Langford continues to express himself in a unique fashion.

By Ed Reynolds

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February 21, 2008

According to Mayor Larry Langford, repaved streets, additional streetlights, laptop computers, and school scholarships are going to stop residents from fleeing Birmingham’s dismal school system. At the January 29 City Council meeting, the mayor announced plans to start his economic revitalization agenda in the Collegeville community. “The reason we chose Collegeville is because—geographically—it’s small enough in size that whatever we do there will have such a major impact that you can actually get a benefit and see the impact of your dollars and use it as a model for other areas,” Langford assured the council. “You begin to re-house a community, street repaving and lighting, you bring people back into your city. You add to that component the laptop computers, and I can assure you . . . once that’s up and running by the end of this year, we are going to find a lot of people who will want to send their children to school who do not have the resources, moving back into our city to take advantage of the scholarships and that sort of thing.”Langford addressed the ever-present crime that has made Birmingham the nation’s sixth most dangerous city. “Our children are acting out on what they’re seeing us doing. We keep talking about these kids. We’ve got too many 50-year-old teenagers in this community. Big ol’ grown men walking around with their pants down, their butts showing, earrings in their ears! We need men to once again stand up and be men. Run your house . . . Ladies, don’t get offended, because some of the best men I know are women. My momma was a better man than any man I ever knew. And I got the scars on my butt to prove it. Now, every time you say ‘discipline your kids,’ I’ve got all of these groups popping up [saying], ‘It’s child abuse to talk about spanking.’ Child abuse is taking your child to the mall and paying $200 for a pair of sneakers for a kid. That’s what child abuse is. Taking your little boys to the mall, punching holes in their heads to put earrings in ’em and them hollering, ‘Black kings wore them!’ Name one!”

Langford went on to criticize parents for expecting teachers to instill discipline that should have been taught at home. “If you are a teacher, be glad I am not your superintendent, for I would make it mandatory that all teachers take a karate course,” Langford said. Recalling his days as a youth, the mayor reminisced, “[Teachers] would knock the paint off your body. And when your parents came, they would finish the job . . . And it’s not against the law—it may be against man’s law to go home and knock your kids out, but it ain’t against God’s law, and God’s law takes precedent over man’s law every day!”

• • •Two weeks later, at the February 12 council meeting, the mayor was again hyperventilating, but this time it was to complain about people calling City Hall to ask that their neighborhoods be cleaned up. “When we picked up almost 20,000 tons of garbage the first time around [during Langford’s initiative to clean up 23 communities in 23 days], and the second time around we’re picking up equally as much garbage and trash. There’s something wrong, something dreadfully wrong,” said Langford. “I hate chicken, I just absolutely don’t like chicken because of all the chicken boxes that’s thrown [out], they just drive past your house and [throw out] chicken bones . . . And this is adults doing this. We blame everything on these kids . . . They drive in front of your house, take the cigarette ashtray, open the door and pour all of the butts in the middle of the street. We need to put their little butts in jail for this nonsense. I mean, how long do we want to keep paying for the irresponsibility of people? And yet they call in here on a daily basis, ‘Will you come pick up this and pick up that.’ We just picked it up yesterday . . . You fine some of these people $2,000 to $3,000 for doing this . . . Forget the fine. It ought to be required by the courts that you ought to go out there and clean up a whole mile of where you dumped it for 30 days. That’ll stop it!”

Langford later admonished women who pursue relationships with men who mistreat them, in the process offering men a glimpse of what they’re missing because he wasn’t born a woman. “C’mon, get a life. If he mistreats you early on, don’t you kid yourself, it’s only going to continue,” Langford scolded. “Because if I was a woman—yeah, and be glad I wasn’t born one ’cause I would have been a fine little thing. Yeah, that’s right. I’d have been the kind when you’re walking down the street [that] looks like two little boys under a blanket fighting.”

• • •Also on February 12, the city council approved spending $3.5 million for 15,000 laptop computers for Birmingham students in grades one through eight. Only Councilor Valerie Abbott voted against the expenditure. Questions about the Birmingham Education Initiative, the non-profit foundation that would manage the program, forced that organization’s creation to be delayed for a week. “You’ve got to have a foundation in place to receive this money. These companies cannot and will not give you money unless there’s a tax-deductible foundation for it,” said Langford.

However, councilors were hesitant to approve the group to oversee the computer program, as the Birmingham Education Initiative has yet to be granted non-profit status. Councilor Roderick Royal, who requests that every dollar go toward the computers “and not be siphoned off by staff costs, etc.,” prefers that the school system oversee the computer program. “The school system has enough issues of its own to deal with,” responded the mayor. “We need a foundation that can go out and recruit funds for this program.”

The stand-off over the management group prompted an antagonistic exchange between Langford and Abbott, who wanted to know more about who would be in charge of the organization. Abbott said she recently discovered a July 2002 memo from then-City Finance Director Folasade Olanipekun regarding the city’s inability to audit the nonprofit Help E-Learn program that was affiliated with Computer Help for Kids, organized by former Healthsouth magnate Richard Scrushy, Langford, and former City Council and County Commission member John Katapodis. Some $200,000 was never accounted for.

Langford grew defensive. “As far as these computers are concerned, I’m the person directly responsible. If I wanted to hire this person you’re talking about, you can’t direct me who to hire and not to hire. Right now, we’re talking about computers coming in for a totally different issue. If you’ve got a problem with E-Learn, we’ve got lawyers here, let them sue them, if that’s the case.” Abbott replied, “If I’m going to be approving this, I am concerned about accountability and the veracity and honesty of people that you are hiring on behalf of the city.” Langford answered, “They may have the same concern about you, since we’re going to play this game!” Abbott maintained her composure as always, and simply replied, “Well, that’s fine and dandy.” &

Baker Knight

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Baker Knight

The late Birmingham songwriter wrote numerous hits as well as a brutally honest memoir.

By Ed Reynolds

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January 10, 2008

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Birmingham’s Baker Knight wrote more than a thousand songs. Ricky Nelson recorded 21 of them, placing three in the Top 10 pop charts before 1960. One of those hits, “Lonesome Town,” rode a second wave of popularity when it was included on the soundtrack of the film Pulp Fiction in 1994. Five years later, Paul McCartney recorded the song on his Run Devil Run album, and later sang it as a tribute at his late wife Linda’s memorial.

Knight’s fame and fortune, however, were forced to compete with the clutter of mental illness and alcoholism that dogged his life. Agoraphobia, addiction, and chronic fatigue syndrome were punctuated by panic attacks and drunken episodes.




	The late Birmingham songwriter wrote numerous hits such for the likes of Ricky Nelson, Elves Presley, and Dean Martin.

Knight died in Birmingham in 2005, having published his memoir, A Piece of the Big-Time, earlier that year. He was a better songwriter than storyteller, yet there are plenty of dramatic escapades and erratic behavior; he puts his life on exhibit as a spectacular highway crash, insisting that everyone stick around to view the charred remains.

Knight has had his songs covered by a diverse group of artists. Elvis Presley made “The Wonder of You” a number-one hit on the easy listening charts in 1970. Frank Sinatra took Knight’s “Any Time at All” to number two on the easy listening charts in 1965, the same year Dean Martin scored a number-two hit with the songwriter’s “Somewhere There’s a Someone.” (From 1966 to 1969 Dean Martin recorded 11 Knight tunes.) In 1976, Knight wrote “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time,” a country music chart-topper for Mickey Gilley. Perry Como, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eddy Arnold also recorded his songs.

While living in Birmingham during the 1950s, after being discharged from the air force for emotional problems, Knight formed a band called the Knightmares that had a regional hit with “Bring My Cadillac Back.” The band signed with the Decca label after the song sold 40,000 copies in two weeks. However, radio was forced to pull the song after it was deemed a free advertisement for General Motors. The band broke up, and Knight moved to Los Angeles in 1958. He was soon hanging around with Ricky Nelson and Eddie Cochran, but his life remained in turmoil. One of his early suicide attempts involved leaping off a cliff behind the Hollywood Hills home of Ricky and his “Ozzie and Harriet” co-star brother David when he discovered the two were not home. He survived and continued to have great musical success despite his mental problems.

In and out of psychiatric hospitals, Knight finally returned to Birmingham in 1977. After various treatments in psychiatric wards, he went to Nashville in a failed attempt to resurrect his career. When he returned to Birmingham, he got a job rewiring lamps for Goodwill Industries. By 1981, his mental problems were so debilitating that he agreed to undergo a new procedure for agoraphobia. Electrodes were planted in both his chest and the back of his skull. The operation was to be shown on “That’s Incredible,” a popular TV show hosted by John Davidson (who once recorded Knight’s “The Wonder of You”). The operation was a failure, leaving Knight in line for shock treatment, which he received. He finally quit drinking in 1982, but his emotional problems continued to haunt him.

In his book, Knight hides none of the embarrassing, unpredictable behavior that shadowed his problems. He treats suicide attempts as self-deprecating episodes of madness. While in Nashville, after his romantic overtures to singer Naomi Judd were rejected, he grabbed his gun one night and went in search of Judd and her date. He once turned on the gas while talking on the phone to his estranged wife not long after she had given birth to their child. As he started to pass out, he decided he didn’t want to die and turned off the gas. However, he forgot the room was full of fumes and lit a cigarette. The explosion hospitalized him for weeks with severe burns, and his alcohol withdrawal resulted in his suffering the DTs while in the hospital, where he had to be tied to his bed.

Raised by alcoholic parents, one of Knight’s sad childhood memories involved a local landmark restaurant: “Sometimes at night, [my mother and stepfather] would take me with them to a Chinese restaurant called Joy Young’s on 21st street in downtown Birmingham. Now don’t let the ‘Joy’ confuse you . . . They would leave me alone in a booth while they moved a few booths away to talk and drink with their no doubt very together friends. They fed me, I’ll say that for ‘em, but sometimes they stayed until closing time while I sat there waiting alone. The booths were large and very much enclosed so I couldn’t see much of what was going on. I could hear them, though, and the drunker they got, the sicker and weaker I felt inside . . . Going to Joy Young’s was a fairly regular outing for a while; one that I most certainly did not look forward to . . . for I knew they’d be drinking until all hours and there was nothing I could do about it. I was in my own little prison for the evening, like it or not, and the only crime I had committed was that of being a child.” &

Dogs and Cats Need a Fix

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Dogs and Cats Need a Fix

By Ed Reynolds

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December 13, 2007

As of November 1, state residents can show their support for spaying and neutering pets by purchasing Alabama Spay-Neuter vehicle license plates. The Alabama Department of Revenue has approved the Alabama Veterinary Medical Foundation’s program to sell Spay-Neuter tags for $50 each (the same price as any specialized state tag), with $41.25 of each sale going toward defraying the costs of spaying and neutering pets for individuals on Medicaid. The ALVM Foundation is affiliated with the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association.




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Pre-sales must reach 1,000 by November 2008 before the tags will actually be manufactured; current license tags will be used until that goal is reached. Purchase of the Spay-Neuter tag requires completing a “commitment to purchase” application and paying the $50 fee at a local county license plate office. The Spay-Neuter tags will be available two months after the minimum pre-sale commitments have been sold. Participants will be notified by the ALVM Foundation once the tags arrive. Purchasers must present both the $50 fee receipt and the “Commitment to Purchase” application to pick up their tags.

Rick Derrick, director of public relations for the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association, said that response around the state indicates there should be no problem meeting the 1,000 pre-commitments. “We just encourage folks to go ahead and do the pre-commitment because if we don’t get the 1,000 pre-sold, then we won’t have the program,” said Derrick. “We anticipate we’re going to sell more than that.” He added that the process to make the license plate available took quite some time. “It’s been a year or longer. They had to go into that with the committees in the legislature and so forth,” explained Derrick. “They just don’t hand out those applications. They have to look at what is the benefit to the community . . . It was a long process.”

Greater Birmingham Humane Society Executive Director Jacque Meyer said the benefits of reducing the number of stray animals are obvious. “I think [the tags are] wonderful. I think it’s going to save a noticeable amount of lives, most importantly,” said Meyer. “And secondly, I think it’s going to save taxpayers thousands and thousands of dollars on stray animals and animal issues.”

135,000 dogs and cats are euthanized in Alabama annually. Tags may be purchased by calling (334) 395-0086 or visiting www.alvma.com.

Rated X

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Rated X

Porno theater The Screening Room is forced to close after the city belatedly acknowledges that the venue’s main attraction was live sex.

By Ed Reynolds

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December 13, 2007

The Screening Room, at 2130 Second Avenue South, was closed on Tuesday, November 27, when the Birmingham City Council revoked its business license.

The establishment, which operated for 25 years as an adult theater and video store, was also a popular site for swingers and those in search of anonymous sex. Operation New Birmingham president Mike Calvert, referencing “shocking public behavior” and “morals violations” at the location, told the council that he had sent a copy of a July 13, 2006, Black & White story (“ Shot in the Dark ”) that detailed ongoing sexual activity involving patrons at the theater to then-Birmingham Police Chief Annetta Nunn. A police raid of the business followed, though the theater remained in operation. Over the next year, several other vice squad stings occurred, with 16 people arrested.

During the council meeting, a police officer read excerpts from the article, written by J.R. Taylor. The officer did not hide his disgust with the activity observed at The Screening Room. He admitted that it is difficult to get police officers involved in such sting operations because “personal space” can’t be guarded as well as when conducting, say, an undercover drug buy. The officer described some Screening Room patrons alternately as “totally naked, sitting on a chair . . . masturbating . . . butt-naked.”

One downtown resident described the business as an example of the “toxic environments that are being allowed to spill over into our neighborhood.” An employee of a nearby architect’s office described having to step around the used condoms that often littered the sidewalk. Gary Bostany, president of the Five Points South Neighborhood Association, said that the surrounding neighborhoods have been aware of the illegal activity at The Screening Room for years. “I guess even the city and the police department, we’ve all sort of had a blind eye to it because there wasn’t much going on in that area as far as people living there and businesses; there’s a lot of warehouses,” said Bostany. “But all of that’s changed in the last couple of years. People are moving back, the warehouses are turning into condos, the businesses are coming back. It is an eyesore.”

After 15 minutes of commentary by citizens and business owners, an obviously disgusted Mayor Langford said that he had heard enough and immediately ordered police to park a tactical mobile unit truck in front of The Screening Room. The mayor said he would have the business closed by three that afternoon. “I hope we all take note of what occurred here today,” said Langford. “A community said it’s had enough. They weren’t afraid to come speak out.” &

City Hall — The Honeymoon Phase

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The Honeymoon Phase

The Birmingham City Council and area residents appear willing to follow new Mayor Larry Langford anywhere.

By Ed Reynolds

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December 13, 2007

On December 4, the Birmingham City Council overwhelmingly approved Mayor Larry Langford’s plans to increase the city’s sales tax by 1 percent and double business license fees. Councilors voted 7 to 0 for the sales tax boost, with Councilor Valerie Abbott abstaining (Councilor William Bell was absent). The sales tax increase is projected to raise $36 million for police and fire departmental improvements, economic development, upgrade of streets and sidewalks, and scholarships for Birmingham high school graduates with at least a “C” average (residents will have to vote on the scholarship proposition). Though he approved of the sales tax increase, Councilor Joel Montgomery was the lone “no” vote on the issue of doubling business license fees, a proposal on which Abbott again abstained. The projected $28 million that will be raised by the fee increase is earmarked for a domed stadium and public transit. In the week prior to the vote it was learned that license fees paid by insurance companies have been capped according to state law, making $8 million of the original $36 million projection questionable. Proponents of the Langford plan point out that business license fees have not changed in 25 years and are among the lowest in the region. The average license fee is $983. Of the 28,000 businesses in the city, 80 percent pay $500 or less, according to Deborah Vance, Langford’s chief of staff. The sales tax and business license increases will take effect January 1, 2008.

• • •On November 27, the Birmingham City Council conducted a public hearing at Boutwell Auditorium on Mayor Langford’s tax and fee proposals. (The hearing had been scheduled only a week earlier.) All councilors were present except William Bell, who had been hospitalized. (No reason was given other than Bell’s administrative assistant oddly telling the audience, “Due to no circumstances of his, he’s in the hospital.”) Council President Carole Smitherman requested a moment of silent prayer. Mayor Langford’s chief of staff, Deborah Vance, apologized that the mayor could not be present due to his having to fly to Boston on city business.

Approximately 75 percent of residents who spoke were in favor of the tax increase. A minority, however, voiced loud dissent. Thomas neighborhood association president Alonzo Darrow questioned the wisdom of building an entertainment district in downtown Birmingham without legalized gambling. “If we had a lottery or legalized gaming, would we be sitting up in here tonight?” asked Darrow. About a dozen people in the audience shouted, “No!” He continued: “So your problem is not a one-cent sales tax. Your problem is not a business license. Yo’ problem is Montgomery!” Darrow opposed the tax increases and urged the council to “think about what you’re doing.”

Local schoolteacher Natasha Everett spoke in favor of Langford’s plans. “Not only am I a resident of the city of Birmingham but I’m also a small business owner, and I support the business license fee. I have no problem giving our children a penny. I have no problem hooking up with the vision,” said Everett. “I hear some of the senior citizens saying, ‘Well, we can’t afford it!’ But when you look over there in Five Points West at the casino buses on the weekend . . . Hey! We can afford it! We can quit talking about what we cannot afford!” Everett, a world history teacher at Carver High School, brought two dozen of her students and asked her class to stand as she pleaded, “They want the scholarship money! They need the scholarship money!” Smitherman then requested that the council allow one of Everett’s students to speak. The teen spoke in favor of Langford’s proposals and added that he will be voting for “Barack Obama because I believe he is another Martin Luther King, just like Mr. Langford.” The student elaborated, “I want to be the next Larry Langford, honestly. I want to be the next Barack Obama . . . Not as corny as it may sound, but I have a dream . . . I want to be as big as Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King, Larry Langford, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton . . .” Shouts of “amen!” reverberated through the audience of approximately 400. As the student finished, Smitherman suddenly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen of Birmingham, the honorable Larry Langford.”

The room broke into cheers as Mayor Langford strutted into the room. “Let me apologize. I’ve had so many things going on today,” Langford told the gathering. “And I’ve got to be on a plane at 6 o’clock in the morning to Boston to meet with MIT, uhh, Nicholas Negroponte, the creator and the builder of the laptop computer that we’re going to get for our kids . . . I am sick and tired of hearing people who live outside of the city tell us what we ought not to do inside the city!” The room again broke into applause amid more cries of “amen!” and “all right!” Langford was on a roll: “I have heard some of the most ridiculous things in my life since we proposed the one-cent sales tax: ‘I will go to Tuscaloosa [to buy automobiles at a cheaper tax rate].’ Well, 59 South goes that way!” Langford shouted as he gestured west, the audience laughing and clapping its approval. “We’re either all going to swim together or we’re going to sink together!”

Presumably speaking on the broader topic of personal responsibility, the mayor scolded, “It’s time for this mess to stop! The worst thing that ever happened to us is that some of us got a little house we can’t afford, got car notes we can’t pay, drinking liquor that we can’t spell, and we’ve lost our minds . . . Everybody’s on Ritalin! There ain’t nothin’ wrong with these kids that a good ol’ fashioned butt-whippin’ wouldn’t straighten right out! And if you did that, I wouldn’t have to hire 10,000 cops!” Langford wrapped up with this gem: “I drive through these parking lots and I could pick up a hundred pennies in any of these parking lots! If a penny’s going to break you, you’re already broke anyway, so don’t worry about it.”

• • •At the December 4 council meeting, Councilor Carol Duncan praised Langford’s tax initiative for providing more money for transit. “If you knew the number of calls received in my office on people losing their jobs because the buses don’t run at the time they need to be there, or the time they need to get off,” said Duncan. “If Mayor Langford wants rail, we’re going to give him rail.” Councilor Valerie Abbott said that she was not prepared to vote on the plan without more details. “We don’t really have much information or have even formulated plans how we’re going to spend the money except in broad categories,” said Abbott as she cited statistics indicating that Birmingham residents are becoming poorer yearly. The councilor quipped, “I do admire the mayor’s energy and enthusiasm. And I am well aware that he could sell ice to Eskimos. I’m sure of it. But I’m not an Eskimo.” Alluding to Langford’s “Let’s Do Something” campaign slogan, she added, “I truly want to do something right rather than just do something.”

Council President Carole Smitherman chose to remain true to Langford’s campaign slogan, however, acknowledging the four things that happen to an individual when taken hostage (as said by her pastor on the previous Sunday): Sit down, cry, remember, “and then the fourth thing you do [is] you get up and you try and do something. Birmingham has been held hostage by the suburbs because they say, ‘Birmingham, you can’t do this. You cannot do whatever it is that you want to do.’” Smitherman announced that she wants to form a review committee that would include the mayor’s and councilors’ input. “Every time one of these projects gets ready to come online, [the mayor] has to sit down with that review committee. And all the questions that weren’t answered now, if you will, we will answer them at that time.”

Langford shared his own observations regarding the suburbs. “The city of Birmingham is the reason you’ve got the surrounding suburban communities,” said the mayor. “So goes Birmingham, so goes this whole county. . . . If the heart dies, it’s just a matter of time before the limbs die.” He also praised councilors for standing up to automobile dealers that opposed his proposed tax increases.

Councilor Miriam Witherspoon said that auto dealers who are complaining about the boost in taxes have received plenty of financial incentives from the city. “They spoke about $80 million that they made in profits—that’s one dealer,” said Witherspoon. “Then they want to complain about us imposing a one-cent sales tax to help our communities.” The councilor said that at a meeting with car dealers the previous day, only one representative of the dealerships said he lived in the city. “So before you try to dictate what we do to help our people, you bring to us proof of what you’ve done to help our people,” said the councilor. “All you’ve done is make money off of selling your cars to our people. We’ve made you rich!”

After the meeting Langford said, “Dome done, scholarships done, transit done.” The mayor said he was surprised to learn that “things that I thought had been done years ago have not been done. We’ve got to get designs, we’ve got to get construction managers in place. . . . This is the fun part. We can do this standing on our heads.” &

Peace on Earth

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Peace on Earth

For nearly five decades, the Independent Presbyterian Church Choir has made its Christmas concert distinctive.

By Ed Reynolds

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The IPC choir at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, Italy, after singing a Mass at St. Peter’s. (click for larger version)

December 13, 2007

As with holiday seasons past, the Independent Presbyterian Church (IPC) choir will present its annual Christmas concert on Sunday, December 16. Few holiday rituals are more fulfilling than a late afternoon spent inside the church’s magnificent sanctuary listening to the choir and accompanying strings and brass instrumentation. This year’s presentation will include Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Christmas Carols.”

I first discovered the IPC Christmas concerts a couple of decades ago when the choir was under the direction of Joseph Schreiber, in particular their presentation of “In the Bleak Mid-Winter.” (Schreiber once described the song to me as both “gorgeous and kind of haunting.” Haunting, indeed. The first few phrases paint a desolate picture that sends chills down the spine: “In the bleak mid-winter, frosty wind made moan. Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.”) A graduate of Northwestern University, Schreiber introduced Birmingham to world-class choral music upon his arrival at Independent Presbyterian in 1964 as church organist and music director. Jeff McLelland, current organist and music director at IPC, continues the Schreiber legacy. “Joseph Schreiber raised the level of excellence in chorale singing for church choirs [in the area],” says McLelland. “He established a wonderful tradition of music here, both with a professional-like choir plus offering quality concerts that are free to the public. It’s part of the church’s mission to continue the development of music and arts for public consumption.”

Louise Beard sang alto in Schreiber’s choir for 34 years. “Joe Schreiber sort of took church music out of just your—I hate to say ‘run of the mill’—but he put church chorale music on a professional level,” remembers Beard. “He was all about the music and anything that made the music right, which included a professional attitude, being on time, doing your part. He did not put up with lateness or absence without his knowledge. And he had the ability to make people want to do that. The music was an incredible experience.” Beard retired from the IPC choir after Schreiber stepped down in 1998. “After being there every Wednesday and Friday—and that was minimal—there were Tuesday night extra rehearsals, Saturday morning extra rehearsals—all kinds of stuff. But you wanted to do it, because the musical payback was so fabulous.”

Schreiber passed away on September 20, 2007. Independent Presbyterian has commissioned the building of a new organ to be named after the late director, with installation scheduled for 2012.

The IPC Choir Christmas Concert will be presented on December 16 at 4 p.m. The church is located at 3100 Highland Avenue across from Rushton Park. Call 933-1830 or visit www.ipc-usa.org for more information.