Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford, in one of his first official acts with the City Council, gave them his plan to “do something.”
He personally handed Council members a broad-ranging proposal that would pay for transit, computers for city schoolchildren, the domed stadium project and neighborhood improvements, among other items – all with an economic impact of $1.35 billion.
Details of the plan, dubbed “The Birmingham Community Development and Revitalization Ordinance,” were for the City Councilors’ eyes only; he wanted them to see the plan before the press did. Langford said he would make it public after they’ve had a chance to digest it over the weekend and give him their feedback.
“I will never go forward with information of this magnitude without giving it to you first,” he told six of the nine Councilors present at their Committee of the Whole meeting Thursday afternoon. “I want give you time to go over it … then collectively we can put it out to the public.”
Langford said he wanted the Councilors to meet Monday and air their comments in public. He would make a formal presentation at Tuesday’s Council meeting.
Ordinance Details
In explaining his plan today, Langford said he wanted to create a permanent funding source for the area’s public transit system that would add $17 million to the $8 million the City already pays into the system. The $25 million, along with potential contributions from outside Birmingham, would allow the City to leverage federal dollars to build a system that truly serves the citizens.
The plan would fund his desire to give laptops to every Birmingham City School student in grades 1 through 8 through the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation. Langford said he would meet later this month with Nicholas Negroponte, the co-founding director of the MIT Media Laboratory that set up the nonprofit foundation. Its mission is to provide computers to children in Third-World countries to improve their educational opportunities.
“Birmingham will be the only city in the U.S. to participate in this program” if the agreement with OLPC moves forward. He said officials from CBS’ 60 Minutes TV news magazine will be at the meeting.{mospagebreak}
