New Direction for A New Birmingham
I believe in Birmingham’s people
As the next Mayor of the City of Birmingham, I do not want to micromanage misery in order to advance myself to the next level of electoral ambition. As I look upon the future of our city, Birmingham needs new direction and new leadership. I can provide the leadership for that new direction of competence and accountability, transparency and participation, vision and implementation. Because YOU matter, new direction matters. New direction can only come from new leadership. As Executive Director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, I have worked through our multi-faith, multi-racial organization to bring people together to serve our common good. With the proven administrative skills to get the job done and the vision to know what the job is all about, I want your vote. I have the capacity to make transparent budget processes, trust, honesty, and integrity in city government happen. But you have to want it, believe in it, and, finally, vote for it.
If I am elected, Birmingham will benefit from the leadership of a dedicated and visionary mayor with proven capabilities. I have worked for Fred Shuttlesworth and Anne Braden as Executive Director of the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice, the Partnership for Democracy Foundation, the first Grassroots Environmental Organizer for the Sierra Club, and as an aircraft assembler and union member.
I believe in Birmingham’s people.
Birmingham is tired of senseless conflict, ranging from the merely impolite to the ridiculous. I hear the frustration with a long list of broken promises, non-responsive bureaucracies, and unnecessary delays in long since adopted projects, deteriorating neighborhoods and broken communities.
It’s past time to bring new direction to Birmingham.
The election is not just about new ideas. It’s about choosing a leader who has already demonstrated the commitment to fight for you. From supporting the first welcoming, non-sectarian homeless shelters for men and for women that did no, to building the first state-wide organization that lobbies on behalf of all of Alabama’s low-moderate income families, Alabama Arise, I have worked for you. In working to build the Birmingham Homeownership Center, the most effective loan modification organization in Birmingham in these times of mortgage foreclosures, I have worked for you.
- It’s Past Time to:
- Fully Implement Birmingham’s already adopted Ten-Year Plan to Prevent and End Chronic Homelessness
- Collaborate not only with Regional Governments but also with local governments from Huntsville to Mobile to get the state legislature to allow us to vote on rescinding the Alabama Constitutional Amendment that forbids using state gas taxes to pay for public transportation. That’s where the local funding match is!
- Free Birmingham’s proposed “Living Wage Ordinance” from its bondage in the City’s Legal Department. That’s where good ordinances go to die, never to be heard from again.
- Using existing and potential resources, “cluster” community and economic development so that it has visible scale and builds Birmingham from the inside out. The question becomes how do we do housing development, build new schools and attract new retail and services. We do that through collaborative leadership, that rebuilds communities by clustering new school construction and rehab with new housing initiatives and new economic development initiatives. We do clusters because clusters create scale and scale attracts additional investment.
- Oppose the construction of the “Northern Beltline” that will force Birmingham’s existing sewer customers and water customers to subsidize, through water and sewer rates reverse economic development that sucks the City dry while building fortunes for others.
