A Blues reader kindly sent me a copy of Patrick Cooper’s contest filing, and, as noted in comments below, it’s also available at The Terminal. I’m no attorney, but after reading the filing, it certainly looks like Cooper has a case — assuming everything in it is accurate. Inauguration is scheduled for November 27; the judge will have to move quickly to resolve this by then. Stay tuned.
I am so torn on this. On the one hand, Langford has enough of a reputation of playing fast and loose with law and ethics that he doesn’t need to be doing anything the least bit questionable. On the other hand, he has lived in Birmingham before, has been on the Birmingham City Council before, and so he obviously has a connection with the city that he is re-establishing. I supported Patrick, but I’m afraid that this is really looking like sour grapes. Birmingham desperately needs some stability in City Hall and in the communities, and dragging out the election doesn’t really help.
Lisa, I think the key to the issue is in your comment: “Langford has enough of a reputation of playing fast and loose with law and ethics…”
If he were squeaky clean, with a spotless reputation (or at least as close as any politician can get), the residency issue wouldn’t resonate so much with me, because I would think I could trust in his good intentions even if he appeared to violate the spirit of the law. In reality, if he did indeed break the law, I don’t think it’s wise to brush it off and let it slide. The citizens of Birmingham would be sending a message that he can, yet again, get away with “fast and loose”, and that’s not what the city needs.
Kathy, you just expressed my sentiments for me. Langford is scary on soooo many levels! I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to afford to live in Jefferson County when all the chips fall from the bond debt. When you add a totally bankrupt Birmingham proper to the mix –which I predict would be the result of a LaLa administration–we’ll be in deep doo doo.
If Larry’s spending/borrowing jones don’t kill us, our water/sewer bills just might. If we looked one or two layers deep into the PACs that gave to his campaign, I’ll bet we’d find that they came from some of the same old Big Mules who’ve been developing the hell out of the Cahaba watershed. All that building in the watershed requires more and more expense to treat our drinking water.