City Budget Almost a Done Deal

July 14, 2005

Five days after the city of Birmingham’s fiscal year 2006 began, the City Council and Mayor Bernard Kincaid have apparently reached an accord on the city’s 2006 budget , which totals $303 million. This year concludes with City Council elections, so politics perhaps dictated the Council’s refusal to give in to Mayor Bernard Kincaid’s proposal to slice $1 million from schools or from designated social services that are financed by the city.Kincaid presented the budget to the Council on May 17, three days before it was due. By the end of June, the administrative and legislative branches of Birmingham government remained at odds. The Mayor and Council had decided to focus on two shared priorities: economic development, and jobs and programs for area youth. Kincaid, however, included a two-percent pay raise for city employees [$3.8 million], with the city eating the five-percent increase in health benefits [$1,440,000]. Councilor Elias Hendricks, chair of the Council’s finance and budget committee, argued that the pay increase was introduced later and “wasn’t one of the tenets on which we built our budget.”

Two days following the recessed June 28 Council meeting, Councilor Roderick Royal criticized the Mayor’s office for not having an updated budget available; the one after the Council had made its proposed changes. “To me, I think it was an effort [by the Mayor] to embarrass us,” he said. Since agreement on the 2006 budget was not finalized by July 1, the 2005 budget remained in place.

The drama in the final days of the 2005 fiscal year took the form of an exchange of memos between the Council and the Mayor’s budget team. In a June 30 memo to Kincaid from Councilor Hendricks, the councilor indicated that the Council had passed a proposal to eliminate 92 currently vacant positions that might be filled later in the year ($3.6 million total).

Kincaid’s budget team responded to the Council’s budget amendments the next day, when the 2006 budget was to go into effect. Their response criticized the Council for elimination of the 92 jobs “permanently,” including 32 public-safety positions at a total cost of $1,360,791. [Elimination of the 92 positions would save $3.6 million.] At the June 28 council meeting, Kincaid had criticized the City Council for adding the $1 million taken from the proposed 2006 budget. “The Board of Education, financially, is in much better shape than it was when the city stepped in in the past and took care of some of these things on an emergency basis that now has been deemed to be entitlements.” The Mayor added that the Board of Education budget “comes pretty close to ours with about half the number of employees.” Kincaid did originally leave $707,000 for student safety, crossing guards, and workforce development.

In the past, the city has depended on “salary surplus” [using money designated for jobs that might come open later in the year but that often do not] to make up for budget shortfalls. “We have moved away from the paradigm of doing shadow financing and relying upon salary surplus,” said Kincaid. Salary surplus was originally forced on the city when a six-percent employee pay raise for city employees was included in a past budget.

High on Councilor Roderick Royal’s list of restored funding included education issues. “I do think that we ought to continue the tutorial and adult literacy and other things, because Alabama trails the other states in terms of literacy,” said Royal.

At the July 5 City Council meeting, Kincaid said the Council’s latest proposal “would really cripple the city.” The Mayor said librarian assistants would lose their jobs, and some branches would be forced to lock their doors early, and that parks and recreation facilities would be closed. The Council again recessed for the second week in a row as Kincaid and councilors retreated from the council chambers to hash out differences to adopt a 2006 budget. A consensus was reached, and the Council will vote on the 2006 budget at the July 12 council meeting. The compromise includes keeping the 92 vacant positions originally targeted by the Council. In exchange, money for schools and other programs are back in the budget, including an immediate $200,000 for housing authority community centers, $270,000 for high school coaches and band director salary supplement, $200,000 for reading programs, and $112,000 for professional development. Kincaid said he would locate $1.3 million for these and other immediate additions to the budget by the time the Council votes July 12. By mid-year another $1.1 million will be identified. “This is a fair compromise, partly because the Council is not asking that all of the funds be found up front,” Kincaid said after the meeting.

In an interview after the majority of the Council found a compromise with Kincaid, Councilor Joel Montgomery, who had commended Kincaid for many of his budget cuts, said, “This is what’s been going on up here at City Hall for the longest time . . . This is salary surplus. It is money that is set aside for unfilled positions that never get filled.” Montgomery added that the City Council had caved in to the Mayor, granting him control of the $3.6 million that the Council should have locked into place so Kincaid could not touch it. “We can’t touch that money now because [the Mayor] recommends [how it's spent]. That is state law . . . He’s the only one who can recommend what to do with that money now.” &

The Scientific Deep End

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The Scientific Deep End

By Ed Reynolds

November 03, 2005

The most fascinating lesson garnered from the Einstein exhibit currently at the McWane Center is Albert Einstein’s confession that his imagination played a major role in the “thought experiments” the famed scientist engaged in as he contemplated the mysteries of the universe. “Imagination is more important than knowledge” was his philosophy. Oddly, he never proved his own scientific notions. Einstein merely speculated about time and space, leaving others to prove that he was correct. The most famous of these was Arthur Eddington’s confirmation of Einstein’s speculation that light is bent by gravity. During a 1919 solar eclipse, stars hidden behind the sun were proven to exist because their rays were curved by the sun’s gravity. Only the blotting out of the sun allowed the starlight rays to be seen as they curved around the sun.

The exhibits on display explaining Einstein’s observations are interesting, though somewhat frustrating to the curious lay person when it comes to fully grasping the concepts of one of the greatest scientists in history. Don’t let this discourage you. Simply standing in the presence of handwritten pages by Einstein explaining his 1916 General Theory of Relativity is nothing less than mind-boggling. One wall is covered with a 72-page handwritten manuscript that is the earliest known description of relativity in Einstein’s handwriting, as he did not keep any of the drafts of his 1905 Special Theory of Relativity.

Also on exhibit are the FBI files that addressed Einstein as a security risk. Beginning in 1932, J. Edgar Hoover was determined to prove that Einstein was affiliated with traitors. The scientist had upset some with his support of civil rights. Renowned black opera soprano Marian Anderson was refused a room at a hotel in Princeton, New Jersey, after a concert. Einstein invited her to stay with him, forming a friendship that lasted his entire life. Einstein became an American citizen in 1940, one year after warning President Franklin Roosevelt that defecting German scientists told him the Nazis were working on an atomic bomb. Einstein urged Roosevelt to get America involved in the creation of nuclear weapons. The Manhattan Project began two years later. Interestingly, despite Hoover’s efforts to discredit him, Einstein supported the American war effort by penning a handwritten version of his 1905 Special Theory of Relativity, which was auctioned off to raise $6.5 million in war bonds.

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By the 1950s, however, Einstein had embraced pacifism, calling for the United States to share nuclear technology with the Soviet Union. His denunciation of McCarthyism prompted a letter from House Un-American Activities Committee member John Rankin, who wrote, “It’s about time the American people got wise to Einstein . . . He ought to be prosecuted.” Also on display are letters exchanged with Sigmund Freud regarding human nature and the urge to go to war.

Among the memorabilia is a Birmingham connection. A copy of a letter Einstein wrote to Dr. Robert S. Teague, a UAB professor, is on display. In the correspondence, Einstein sought $1 million to educate Americans on responsible use of atomic power, which Einstein refers to as “the most revolutionary force since prehistoric man’s discovery of fire.” In another letter Einstein refused to accept the presidency of the newly created state of Israel in 1945.

Then there are the letters from children. In 1954, a child wrote in a first-grader’s crude scrawl: “Dear Mr. Einstein, I am a little girl of six. I saw your picture in the paper. I think you ought to have your haircut [sic] so you can look better.”

“Einstein” will be on exhibit at the McWane Center through January 22. For more information, call 714-8300 or visit www.mcwane.org.

Crime on the Increase in Southside

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Crime on the Increase in Southside

If you know anyone who lives or works on Southside, then you probably know someone who knows someone who was robbed this year.

By Ed Reynolds

November 03, 2005

For the past six months, Birmingham’s Five Points South and Lakeview districts have been plagued by a series of armed robberies and muggings. In July, Matt Whitson left the Upside Down Plaza at Pickwick Plaza in Five Points South on a Sunday evening around 11 p.m. As he descended the stairs next to Cosmo’s Pizza on Magnolia Avenue, two black males approached. He assumed they were panhandling. “Being the nice dude that I am, I already had my hand in my pocket to give them money if they asked for it,” Whitson recently recalled. “Instead, one dude pulled out a gun and put it in my stomach, and the two of them forced me back up the stairs.” Whitson handed over his wallet and pocket change. The assailants asked for more, so Whitson offered up his keys, cell phone, and cigarette lighter.

Whitson said that Birmingham police arrived “almost immediately.” However, he later complained in an interview that descriptions of his stolen items were not accurate on the incident report.

On Sunday, June 25, at about 10:50 p.m., Kristie Pickett and a female friend were leaving The Garage, a popular bar located between Highland Avenue and The Nick that as been praised by GQ magazine as one of the “top ten bars in the world worth flying to.” Pickett’s automobile was parked approximately 50 yards down the street from the bar in front of an apartment complex. She had just unlocked the passenger door and was walking around to the driver’s side when the two heard running footsteps behind them. Suddenly, two black males appeared next to her car, one slapping his hand on the vehicle. “One of them said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’” said Pickett, who re-locked her car and began to scream to attract the attention of patrons outside The Garage. The tall, thin robber pulled out a pistol and she put her hands in the air. The assailant demanded her purse, which she surrendered, as did her companion. Garage customers came running as the thugs dashed off with the women’s purses.




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Pickett complained that it took between five and 10 minutes for police to arrive [the Southside precinct is three blocks away] and noted that the squad car arrived without emergency lights flashing. The police told Pickett that the reason it took so long is because the 11 p.m. shift had just come on duty.

On August 21, a white male arrived at Bailey’s Pub in Five Points South after parking in front of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church next door. He noticed a white male and white female standing near a bag on the ground, its contents strewn about. He entered Bailey’s at midnight to meet a friend, who did not appear. Less than five minutes later, he left the bar. Suddenly, he felt a gun placed to the back of his head. It was the man he had noticed with the woman minutes earlier in front of the church. The woman stood nearby. The victim guessed that the pair were in their mid- to late 20s. He said Bailey’s employees told him that the woman had been seen panhandling and possibly “hooking” in the area recently. The victim added that the bar’s employees had begun patrolling the area themselves, which they said had resulted in a reduction in muggings in the high-crime area.

Perhaps the most dramatic mugging this past summer was a brazen assault that occurred on July 26, in broad daylight, during peak traffic hours on 20th Street. A white male parked his pickup truck on 14th Avenue South near the entrance of Cobb Lane at 5:30 p.m. As he shut off his engine and placed his keys on the seat, preparing to exit the vehicle, a black male who looked to be in his mid-20s appeared at the driver’s window, asking for directions. The vehicle was locked but the windows were down. When the victim responded that he couldn’t help, a second male appeared at the passenger window, leaned into the truck, and pointed a gun. The victim told the robbers they could have whatever they wanted and offered his wallet to the man with the gun. Meanwhile, the assailant on the driver’s side punched the victim, cutting his face as the other attacker with the gun ran off with the wallet.

At that point, the victim opened his door quickly, slamming it into the remaining robber, then falling onto the ground while exiting the truck. The assailant began kicking the victim repeatedly in the body and face, but the victim somehow grabbed the robber and began punching him, finally managing to restrain him and call the police. He kept the assailant subdued until police arrived.

Six weeks ago, McDaniel Wyatt, a bartender at The Oasis, in the Lakeview District, was closing the bar at 4:45 on a Friday morning with bartender Kelly Pierce and another worker. Pierce was in the restroom when a black male in a ski mask entered the bar through a rear window. The intruder knew where the cash register was (Wyatt assumed the intruder had cased the bar earlier) and pointed a .38-caliber revolver at Wyatt and demanded that he put the register’s cash in a plastic bag. Wyatt then tossed the keys to the assailant, telling him that he was going into the restroom and to take what he wanted. “I had already put most of the money in the safe, so he didn’t get much from the register,” said the bartender. “The guy looked like he hadn’t done too many robberies, and I was scared he was going to shoot himself in the foot.” The incident lasted a little over three minutes, according to Wyatt. Pierce said she stayed in the restroom in order not to scare the man, which might have prompted him to start shooting. Wyatt said it was the first robbery in the five years that he’s been at The Oasis, but added that crime has increased “dramatically” recently. “All the employees here have had their cars broken into in the past year,” he added.

According to Wyatt, the police said Silvertron Cafe, which is not far from Lakeview, was robbed the same night. Silvertron management denied that any incidents have occurred there, however.

Repeated calls to the Birmingham Police Department’s public information officer to confirm events in this story were not returned. &

NASCAR is for Squares

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NASCAR is for Squares

They’re slow, they’re ugly, and other reasons why NASCAR events are less appealing than Indy racing.

By Ed Reynolds

October 06, 2005

Several years ago, NASCAR jumped from its long-time affiliation with ESPN to a lucrative contract with NBC, Fox, and TNT. The result? Stock-car racing trails only NFL football in television ratings. What was once looked down upon as a regional “redneck” sport has blossomed into a predictable weekly episode that’s about as exciting as “The Dukes of Hazzard” without a Confederate flag. Even the SPEED Channel, a 24-hour haven for racing enthusiasts, has shamelessly cashed in on the popularity, featuring Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and other NASCAR stars sitting around a table playing Texas Hold ‘Em. NASCAR fans actually consider such parlor games as viable racing coverage. Frankly, I’m getting more than a little bored with NASCAR racing.

Thanks to an intense relationship with television, NASCAR has captured an astonishingly wide audience. The opportunity for prime-time telecasts prompted the installation of lights at some tracks, ending the previous inconvenience of having races postponed to the following day because of rain delays. This summer’s Pepsi 400, a prime-time Saturday night race held each July Fourth weekend at Daytona Speedway, was delayed for nearly three hours, yet TV crews continued telecasting from the track as a captive nationwide audience waited for the track to dry. The race resumed, ending around 2:00 in the morning. Lights also made it possible for a NASCAR race to be an eight-hour event, creating an adult beverage bonanza for fans already legendary for their beer consumption.

One thing hasn’t changed, however. NASCAR devotees continue to shun “open-wheel” racing—the roofless, fenderless race cars typically seen at the Indianapolis 500—for its former lack of close-quarters racing and undramatic finishes. Ten years ago, Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George decided to take on NASCAR’s stranglehold on the racing market. George formed the Indy Racing League (IRL), featuring open-wheel, open-cockpit automobiles on oval tracks as opposed to traditional winding-road courses. Indianapolis Motor Speedway was one of the few oval tracks that the CART series, NASCAR’s rival before the IRL was formed, raced on. Tony George brought the IRL to the South, sometimes racing on short tracks usually associated with stock cars.

For the first couple of years, the closest thing the IRL had to a racing star was NASCAR’s current “angry driver” poster boy—Tony Stewart. Stewart’s temper tantrums made IRL race days memorable. After winning the IRL championship in 1996, Stewart left for the big money and high profile of NASCAR. Finally, George wrestled the Unsers, Andrettis, and other high-profile drivers from CART into his IRL series, but large attendance and television ratings remained elusive. Oddly, NASCAR can put 120,000 fans in the stands at tracks where the IRL draws crowds of less than 30,000.

To fully grasp just how sluggish NASCAR is, switch channels to an IRL race after watching a few minutes of stock cars. At Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a stock car qualifies around 185 mph, while an IRL car qualifies at around 227 mph. Racing experts have speculated that an IRL car could top 250 mph at a high-banked track like Daytona. Of the 111 races run in the past 10 years in the IRL, 50 have had a margin of less than one second between first and second place. NASCAR is lucky if 10 percent of its events are such close races. Moreover, in terms of actual drama, NASCAR’s notorious door-to-door bashing doesn’t compare to the action when IRL cars get wheel-to-wheel at top speed. Often, open-wheel cars become airborne after only the slightest bump. The crashes are the most spectacular moments in sports. IRL races wrap up in a couple of hours as opposed to NASCAR’s typical four-hour extravaganzas.




NASCAR’s stock cars (above) are a sluggish bunch compared to the Indy Racing League’s open-wheel, open-cockpit racing cars (below). (click for larger version)

The IRL also boasts an international flavor, while NASCAR practically regards guys from California as foreigners. The IRL even has competitive women behind the wheel. Danica Patrick, who drives for a team co-owned by David Letterman, almost won this year’s Indy 500 until low fuel forced her to cut back on speed. The best finish for a NASCAR star in an Indy car was Donnie Allison’s fifth place in the 1970s.




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NASCAR fans are a stubbornly dedicated bunch. But their arguments that stock cars are more competitive than open-wheelers collapsed once Tony George’s league got a few years under its belt. It’s not likely that the stock-car masses will ever appreciate the fine art of speed. As a friend once told me, comparing open-wheel competition to stock car racing is like comparing boxing to wrestling. &

Abandoned in the Flood

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Abandoned in the Flood

Volunteers from across the country joined in the heartbreaking task of recovering pets from the hurricane-ravaged coast.

By Ed Reynolds

October 06, 2005Timmy DeRusha is Loretta Lynn’s tour manager. With a week off the road from a current performance trek, DeRusha didn’t lounge around his Tennessee home resting up for the next round of concerts. Instead, he spent the time in flood-ravaged New Orleans rescuing dogs and cats left behind when their owners fled the devastation inflicted by Hurricane Katrina.

Along with his father-in-law and brother-in-law, DeRusha loaded a pickup truck and cargo van with medical supplies and food donated by Nashville-area veterinarians, then headed to New Orleans. “The smell of that city . . . You could smell it from miles away, driving in over the bridge,” DeRusha recalled in a recent telephone conversation. With signs reading “Disaster Response Animal Rescue” posted on their vehicles, DeRusha’s group was escorted by a local fisherman who had previously supplied boats to various animal rescuers as needed. Guards posted outside the city allowed the group in after recognizing the fisherman. “We were armed, because [the guards] said that we might run across someone who wasn’t supposed to be in [New Orleans],” said DeRusha.

At some homes, DeRusha’s crew brought out dogs and cats while National Guard troops removed dead humans from the house next door. “People that left had spray-painted ‘PETS INSIDE’ or ‘DOG NEEDS RESCUED’ on plywood-covered windows in hopes that somebody would be coming along to get them,” said DeRusha. “But some of the animals had gotten stuck on balconies or rooftops and weren’t able to get down.” He said most of the animals were not vicious. “Most were traumatized, because they hadn’t had food or fresh water for two weeks,” DeRusha explained. “After we gave them dog treats and water and they realized that we were there to help them, then it was no problem at all. A lot of them were just really, really scared because all of a sudden the person that had been there taking care of them, in their mind, had deserted them. Then all this stuff happened that they had never seen happen before, with all the water coming in. The animals were survivors. Unfortunately, there were a lot of animals that we were too late for.”




An animal rescue volunteer coaxes a dog to safety. (click for larger version)

DeRusha and his crew used poles with nooses to catch dogs. “If they were too vicious, we just left fresh food and water. I’d say that nearly half the animals that we rescued were pit bulls. We were working in the inner-city area, mostly. That’s obviously what they do there, they raise dogs to fight. Some of the dogs needed rescuing whether there was a hurricane or not. They weren’t being taken care of . . . One was a three-month old pit bull pup. He tried to act like the most vicious of all, but when we gave him some food he began acting like a typical puppy.”

Other scenarios were simply horrifying. A pair of pit bulls were discovered in one abandoned home. The female was emaciated, though it was obvious she had delivered a litter days earlier. DeRusha could not locate the litter and surmised that the male, who appeared well-fed, had cannibalized it.

Rescued animals were crated, with the address of recovery marked on the crate so pets could possibly be reunited with owners. For five days straight, DeRusha hauled approximately 30 dogs and cats each day to Tylertown, Mississippi, where a temporary animal sanctuary had been erected on five acres of farmland.

The Greater Birmingham Humane Society (GBHS) brought more than 300 rescued animals back to Birmingham from Tylertown, Hattiesburg, and Jackson, Mississippi, where animals had been sheltered prior to rescue groups such as GBHS arriving. GBHS director Jacque Meyer was impressed by the number of people who came from across the country to help in the animal rescue effort. “It’s been very, very sad, but I am amazed at the number of people in the United States that have made an effort, using vacation time and their own money, to rescue these animals.” Meyer said that an abandoned warehouse in the Gonzalez area of New Orleans sat on higher ground that had stayed relatively dry. Abandoned animals migrated to the warehouse area, though some people were observed dumping off animals at the site. Food and water were supplied to the homeless animals at the site by the few officials allowed into New Orleans until the animals could be taken away.

Approximately 75 percent of the animals that Jacque Meyer brought to Birmingham were dogs, the rest being cats, along with an occasional goat or pig. They were medically treated at GBHS until the North Shore Animal League, an organization that finds homes for more than 30,000 animals yearly, took them to its New York state headquarters where they will be housed until either the owners find their animals through the web site www.petfinder.com, or until the animals can be adopted.

Meyer said the trauma endured by abandoned animals continued to affect many even weeks after being rescued. “Some wouldn’t sleep lying down because they were so used to standing up so they could survive,” she explained, adding that some rescued dogs kept trying to swim each time they were lifted up into the arms of shelter workers, even though they had been away from flood waters for days. &

The King to Hold Court at the Alabama Theatre

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The King to Hold Court at the Alabama Theatre

By Ed Reynolds

September 22, 2005

Richard Petty, the King of stock-car racing, will be at the Alabama Theatre Thursday night, September 29, to reflect upon his amazing racing career. Petty is NASCAR’s winningest driver, with 200 wins, almost twice as many as second-highest winner David Pearson. His trademark sunglasses, cowboy hat, and baby-blue number 43 race car with the STP logo were the essence of NASCAR racing throughout the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.




Richard Petty. (click for larger version)

Petty was an anachronism. He continued to wear cowboy boots when racing while other drivers wore fireproof racing shoes. He led a driver boycott at the inaugural race at Talladega in 1969 amid complaints that tires would not hold together at the track’s high speeds. The race instead was run with a field of no-names. After retirement, Petty continued to display his rebel streak. In 1996, after leaving Charlotte Motor Speedway, the King became frustrated with a slow driver on Interstate 85 and bumped the offending vehicle from behind to get the driver out of his way. Petty, at the time a candidate for secretary of state in North Carolina, was charged with reckless driving and hit and run.

Alabama Royalty

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Alabama Royalty

By Ed Reynolds

September 22, 2005

There’s a touch of royalty nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in northeast Alabama. Surrounded by Lookout Mountain, Desoto State Park, the Little River Canyon Natural Preserve, and gorgeous Lake Guntersville, an imposing stone (and brick) castle in Fort Payne is currently on the market for a cool $4.9 million. Built and presently owned by Jeff Cook, guitarist for the band Alabama, the eight-bedroom, seven-and-a-half-bathroom palace is an eye-catcher set on 40 lush acres with a pond. The main foyer includes granite tile floors, a coffered ceiling, crystal chandelier, and a pair of curved hardwood staircases. The grand room features an immense stone fireplace that stretches more than two stories tall with balconies that overlook the immense chamber. A couple of kitchens and a formal banquet room with picture windows offering views of the grounds are sufficient to entertain a few hundred guests.




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The owner’s suite offers “his” and “hers” bathrooms. A sunken garden tub and a hot tub are the main attractions in the lady’s bath; the gentleman will have to make do with a simple yet immaculate tile shower. The guest suite features an amenity ideal for any overnight company—a heart-shaped garden tub. There’s a game room with a billiard table, an exercise room, and even more bedrooms in case the summer soirées get out of control.

The Fort Payne castle does boast two amenities not usually found in palatial estates south of Nashville: a recording studio and a guitar-shaped swimming pool complete with a two-tier waterfall. Private balconies extend around the courtyard surrounding the pool area. Appointments for those with serious inquiries can be made by calling 205-401-7045. And for God’s sake, if you do qualify for a showing, don’t refer to the pool as a “cement pond.” Fort Payne folks have grown weary of that joke.

City Hall — Kincaid Dismisses Council “Electioneering”

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September 22, 2005

Kincaid Dismisses Council “Electioneering”

“Who’s on first?” Mayor Bernard Kincaid responded when asked about the Birmingham City Council’s reaction to the demand by taxi drivers that cab rates be increased due to rising gasoline prices. Earlier that morning, the Council had delayed a vote allowing local cab drivers to increase their rates with rising fuel costs. The taxi industry previously presented a petition to the Council’s transportation committee, threatening bankruptcy. Councilor Carol Reynolds, chair of the committee, said the cab industry was essential to the area as a supplement to inadequate public transit. A proposed fuel surcharge of $1 will be waived for senior citizens 60 and over. Also proposed is a 50-cent increase over the current $2.25 for each first quarter-mile, with another nickel for each additional quarter-mile (currently at 40 cents each). One American Cab Company driver who owns his cab told the Council he was spending $150 a week for gasoline. But angry citizens denounced any increase in rates without a public hearing. The Council delayed the vote until the following Tuesday so the public could express concerns at the next meeting. “[Cab drivers] can’t operate according to supply and demand. They can’t raise their rates,” explained Councilor Valerie Abbott, describing the drivers’ plight as “desperate straits.” Only the City Council can adjust taxi rates, which have not been increased since December 2000.

After the meeting, Kincaid said the Council should have been prepared to vote on the issue without resorting to delays for public input, having been aware that the rate increase proposal was on the horizon. “This is clearly an election year,” complained Kincaid. “And I can’t imagine the Council hearing from the public, who is going to decry any increase in the rates. And they’re still being left with having to make a decision about whether or not they will provide the economic relief that the cabs of the systems in the city need.”

Irate over the Council’s campaign grandstanding with an election four weeks away, Kincaid said attaching public hearings to the rate increase doesn’t change the needs of the cab drivers. “You’re not going to have a horde of people coming up saying, ‘I support raising cab rates.’ It’s not going to happen.” The Mayor said that in a “representative democracy,” councilors must realize that tough choices have to be made. “The electioneering that you saw, and the ‘Who’s on first?’ chapter that you just witnessed, doesn’t solve the issue. It’ll be back next week . . . and I guarantee you not one [constituent] will say, ‘I want the rates raised.’ And they’ll [the Council] still be pleased with the fact that we have a taxi cab industry in Birmingham teetering on the brink of collapse . . . So who’s on first?”

“I’m riding a bicycle to places right now, because gas is just that high.” —City Councilor Bert Miller, empathizing with cab drivers before postponing a vote to increase cab rates

“While gasoline may be your problem, it’s everybody’s problem,” Councilor Joel Montgomery told a contingent of drivers and officials representing the taxi industry at the meeting. “I think you’re going to have a serious problem with this if something’s not done about gasoline prices in this country, period. I don’t care what industry you’re in. The public’s not going to have the same ability to come before this body and have their salaries raised . . . to offset the expense of taxi cabs.” Montgomery said he had not made up his mind on the increase. Councilor Carole Smitherman expressed concern about drivers asking the elderly for proof of age, while Councilor Reynolds feared the worst if taxis quit running. “If these gentlemen go off the road for one day, with the inadequate transit system you have, it will be chaos,” said Reynolds. “People will not be able to get to work.”

Councilor Bert Miller, however, agreed with Montgomery. “This is your chosen profession, and there are consequences, you know, that we all have to face,” said Miller. “So next week, will we have a thousand folks here asking us to raise their salaries, also?” Miller acknowledged empathy with the cab drivers, commenting, “I’m riding a bicycle to places right now, because gas is just that high.”

City Doles Out $25,000 to be on ESPN 2

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The city of Birmingham paid $25,000 to ESPN so cable channel ESPN 2 would televise the September 3 football game between Alabama State and South Carolina State at Legion Field. The telecast was the first of three annual ESPN-affiliated broadcasts from Legion Field featuring schools from traditionally black athletic leagues, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference, which has headquarters in Birmingham. The game was billed as the MEAC-SWAC Challenge, which South Carolina State won 27-14 before a crowd reported at 18,000.

The Birmingham City Council approved the expenditure at the September 7 Council meeting, delayed from a scheduled previous meeting that had been canceled due to Hurricane Katrina. Afterwards, Kincaid was obviously unhappy that benefits to the city through ESPN advertising were less than satisfactory. Kincaid said before the city forks over $25,000 each of the next two years remaining on the contract, he expects the cable network to comply with certain stipulations. “They’re going to have to advertise on black radio. There wasn’t enough advertising in black media to suit me,” said the Mayor. Kincaid said he informed ESPN officials on game day that “it was unconscionable to come into this market and not advertise on black-owned radio.” Kincaid elaborated, “There are advertisements that went forward on white-owned black-formatted radio . . . I will refuse to honor [contract requirements] unless and until that happens.” &

City Hall — Transit System Threatens Halt

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Transit System Threatens Halt

August 25, 2005

The Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority (BJCTA) is warning that public transportation may shut down August 31 if the Metro Area Express (MAX) does not receive $2.8 million owed by the city of Birmingham. Of the money owed, $1.1 million is a fiscal year 2003 debt the city has not paid, while the other $1.7 million is for current services in 2005. The BJCTA’s 2006 fiscal year begins October 1, 2005. Phil Gary, chair of the MAX board of directors, said the agency was not aware of the financial crisis until the first week of August, after a recent audit.

At a Birmingham City Council transportation committee meeting on August 17, MAX representatives presented the information to the Council for the first time. Surprised Council members were concerned but said it was the responsibility of the Mayor’s office to execute payment for what the Council had already approved. “The money is there,” said Councilor Elias Hendricks, and transportation committee chair Carol Reynolds told MAX representatives that the issue would be taken to the Mayor. In addition to Reynolds and Hendricks, Councilor Valerie Abbott was also present. None of the three would offer an opinion about the failure of the Mayor’s office to make payments to the BJCTA.

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“The Council has approved the FY2003 payments to the MAX agency, as well as the 2005 payments,” said Phil Gary. “We need the executive office to authorize the finance department to write a check so that we don’t have to stop services . . . It would be a tragedy not to be able to run paratransit [the transit services provided for those with medical needs and disabilities].”

Interim MAX Executive Director David Hill, a former MAX operations manager, said that the $1.9-million surplus MAX reportedly had did not really exist. The miscalculation occurred because lump-sum payments to the transit system had been made at irregular intervals, giving the appearance of more money in reserve than what existed. Citing past “creative accounting” practices, Hill added that there was no three-month reserve supply of money, as had been reported. He blamed the poor bookkeeping on the failure of the MAX board to add a financial expert to the staff. “We had no CPA or accounting professional at all on our staff to provide accurate financial reports,” explained Hill. MAX has since hired a CPA as the new comptroller.

At a specially called MAX board meeting (convened hours before the transportation committee meeting), board member Reginald Swanson demanded to know what authority Birmingham had to delay payments. Swanson demanded that the board take the matter to court as soon as possible. New board member Guin Robinson urged the board to let the city of Birmingham respond before taking legal action. Swanson argued that the transit system was only two weeks away from ceasing operations and said the litigation should proceed if the board got no satisfaction from the Council later that afternoon. Phil Gary was equally irate. “I think it’s appalling that the city will not remit to us [money owed] for services provided,” said Gary. MAX board member Johnnye Lassiter, who represents Bessemer, added, “I would hate to have to go to Bessemer and tell them the system will shut down because the Mayor of Birmingham is not paying his bills.”

In December 2004, the MAX board ended a two-month drama regarding the fate of former Executive Director Mark Stanley. As the director for two years, Stanley boosted ridership, increased routes, added night and weekend service, and increased revenues. But MAX chief Phil Gary criticized Stanley’s financial and staffing management and said Stanley deserved no credit for public transit improvements. After an initial vote last October to fire Stanley, the four dissenting board members refused to attend subsequent meetings to confirm the vote. This prevented a quorum in light of the absence of board member Reginald Swanson (who was in favor of firing Stanley) due to hospitalization. Eventually, a quorum showed, and Stanley was voted out five to four. The minority in support of Stanley then asked for Phil Gary’s resignation, which was voted down. Critics have blasted Gary for wanting Stanley out, saying that Gary—a former MAX general manager who was asked to resign at the board’s request in 1995—can micromanage the agency as he pleases. It should be noted that under Gary’s management, MAX lost money, cut routes, laid off drivers, and increased fares.

Birmingham currently provides $6 million of the $16 million MAX annual budget. The city appoints five of the nine MAX board members. Birmingham Mayor Bernard Kincaid, who was invited to the August 17 transportation committee meeting but was on vacation and did not attend, later said that MAX invoices from 2003 and 2005 had not been submitted. Phil Gary insists that the invoices were turned in. &

Strange Angel

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By Ed Reynolds

Strange Angel

The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons

For the past two years, a pair of robot vehicles, each the size of a golf cart, have been exploring the surface of Mars. The robots were created by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, which was also responsible for the first spacecraft to orbit another planet (Mariner 2, around Mars in 1962) and the first to land on another planet (Viking 1, on Mars in 1976). In the late 1930s, an explosives genius named Jack Parsons co-founded JPL, which was sometimes referred to as the Jack Parsons Laboratory, with his gang of curious rocketeers known as the Suicide Squad.

Parsons’ legend is the most peculiar chapter in the history of space exploration, told with wide-eyed fascination by author George Pendle in Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons. Parsons’ revolutionary work with liquid propellants and sustained engine-powered rocket flight introduced America to the jet age. Without the Suicide Squad, Neil Armstrong would never have walked on the moon, nor would shuttle flights today ferry crew and supplies to the International Space Station. Despite his respected status as a true rocket pioneer, John (Jack) Parsons was beyond eccentric. As a genuine mad scientist and a dedicated follower of occult figure and sexual hedonist Aleister Crowley, he baffled the scientific community. Parsons however, did not view science and magic as contradictory: “It seems to me that if I had the genius to found the jet propulsion field in the United States, and found a million-dollar corporation [Parsons started Aerojet Corporation, which today employs 2,500] and a world-renowned research laboratory, then I should be able to apply this genius to the magical field.”

Parsons began playing with explosive black powder as a teen in the Southern California desert just before the Depression hit. Mixing chemicals to create explosives to launch crude bamboo rockets, he soon realized that in order to achieve the dream of reaching the moon, a sustained flight required liquid fuel-powered engines that could fire repeatedly. After high school, he supported his family with work as an explosives expert at the Hercules Powder Company in California. The family fortune disappeared after the 1929 stock market crash. Before then, a limousine took Parsons to school daily. He continued his desert rocket experiments and started informal discussion groups that included his Suicide Squad comrades and writers of science-fiction pulp stories obsessed with interplanetary travel. Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov often attended meetings.

Members of the American Communist Party also began showing up at meetings. Their inclusion in the book adds an element of intrigue to a story of good guys, bad guys, and those caught along the blurred line that separates the two. Though he declined to join the organization, Parsons’ loose affiliation with the Communists would come back to haunt him as World War II evolved into the Cold War. His security clearance to work on government projects was removed and reinstated several times. Meanwhile, Joe McCarthy would pick off several of Parson’s pals one by one.

Interestingly, Parsons had earlier been in regular communication with Wernher Von Braun, the German scientist who built the V-2 missile for the Nazis and who was later primarily responsible for designing the rockets that put Americans into orbit. Ironically, Von Braun never hesitated to share ideas with Parsons and his friends in the 1930s. The father of American rocketry, Robert Goddard, however, refused to help the young Suicide Squad when they visited his laboratory in Roswell, New Mexico. That Goddard lived in a desert city which would later become best known as the place where an alien was supposedly discovered adds an even weirder note to the curious story of Jack Parsons.

Strange Angel is more than weird tales, though. The book is not only a fascinating peek at the history of American rocket science, it also provides glimpses into the world of explosives that anyone fascinated by Fourth of July fireworks should appreciate:

Learning explosives from other workers, Parsons soon discovered such essentials as the difference between a high explosive and a low explosive. A high explosive such as nitroglycerine (the base constituent of dynamite, made by treating a natural by-product of the soap-making process, glycerine, with sulfuric and nitric acids) decomposes into gases in a few millionths of a second, about a thousand times faster than a low explosive such as black powder or gunpowder . . . Because of their rapid and violent detonation, high explosives are better suited for demolition work, while low explosives such as gunpowder are better used as a propellant, pushing projectiles out of gun barrels.>Three-quarters into the story, the most unexpected of antagonists appears in the life of Jack Parsons: L. Ron Hubbard, the mid-century science-fiction writer who stole Parsons’ girlfriend (who was also Parsons’ sister-in-law, a relationship he flaunted in front of his wife) and dashed off to Florida to start the religious cult known as Scientology. Descriptions of Hubbard’s charisma convey the image of an irresistible snake-oil salesman, and readers may subsequently understand how Hubbard would mesmerize Hollywood’s finest decades later.

Parsons does not meet with a happy ending. Having forsaken much of his dark-side infatuation as he approached 40, he met his fate in an ugly but predictable manner. Lying on the ground with half his face blown off and one arm missing amidst the rubble of an explosives accident, he died at age 38. The explosion was determined to be the result of the mad rocket scientist’s careless insistence on mixing explosives in a coffee tin rather than reliable chemical flasks. Regardless, his short but fascinating life had lived up to the original birth name his mother later changed to John: Marvel Whiteside Parsons. Decades later, JPL scientists named a crater on the dark side of the moon “Parsons Crater.” &