Norfolk Southern, bus transit and elections

Be sure to read my Western Tribune column which follows this post.

The former president of the Metropolitan Development Board, Ted vonCannon, is now a paid consultant for Norfolk Southern. He spoke at the 2oth annual Bessemer Business Awards held at Lawson State Community College. story at al.com

He told the group that he believes that the McCalla residents will eventually see he intermodal project as a positive development.

"It's a project I believe has great merit," vonCannon said. "Is everybody going to be happy? of course not. but I believe there can be a greater understanding."

Monday the No Hub 4 McCalla folks had a meeting and one of their speakers told the group "Norfolk Southern doesn't care about your kids. Norfolk Southern is looking out for Norfolk Southern. It's up to us to look out for ourselves."

Just for the record, Norfolk Southern does care about kids. In 1984 they established a foundation to direct their charitable giving.

From their web site:

The Foundation's intent is to help ensure that:

• Our region's children are provided with first-class educational opportunities that make them productive and valued employees in the future;
• Our communities can offer their citizens access to cultural opportunities that make life more enjoyable; and
• Our communities can provide residential and work environments that are safe, attractive and desirable.

While most of their charitable giving (which is in the millions) toward education is for post secondary scholarships and such, young children benefit from their giving to United Way and other community and cultural recipients.

Larry Langford and upcoming elections

What can I say. I wrote about Al LaPierre's plea agreement yesterday on Examiner. Langford's spin is that this will help him, so it's business as usual for him.

He says the city needs to fix the bus system, or start over.

Here is the future of the Birmingham bus system, as envisioned by the Metropolitan Planning Organization (h/t to Jay). No mention of this by Langford in the article, by the way. Of course, it wasn't one of his grandiose ideas.

After watching that I wonder (?) why don't we have people with an eye on the future in our city government? Why do we elect people who are tied to the past? I love what my friend said the other day, that the past should be a light post, not a hitching post.

I hate that Birmingham is about to get another black eye when the mayor goes on trial. I hate that this is tied to the troubles of Jefferson County, which is sinking faster than the Titanic. What business in their right mind would want to locate in the city or county with what is going on? What family would want to move here?

There is a great opportunity in Birmingham for a new kind of leadership, and city elections are coming up next month. Let's hope that the voters of Birmingham look for young leaders or at least leaders with young ideas that can change the vision from looking backward to looking forward.

The same holds true for Bessemer. Next year we have city elections and will elect a council and mayor. We need new people on our council and a new mayor to project our city into the future. The people of Bessemer and surrounding communities are so disgruntled that only 8 percent voted in the recent special election. We need candidates that excite us.

Oh, and aren't County Commission elections next year also. Please, please, voters, replace them all. I don't care if your favorite commissioner has been on the right side of the bankruptcy argument or the McCalla controversy or what. They are all tainted.