Randall Woodfin delivers another campaign promise, increases administration’s transparency
In a day and age where political candidates across the country espouse the importance of transparency, very few actually follow through with their ideas when they get in office. During his campaign for mayor Randall Woodfin made a bevy of promises to the people of Birmingham to revitalize the city and help restore trust in local government. Many of the promises he said he would accomplish within his first 100 days in office. While he missed the mark on completing them all within the first 100 days, he’s still following through and completing his many promises. On Tuesday, the Mayor’s office announced the completion of another campaign promise to promote transparency and accountability by introducing the Open Checkbook portal on the city’s website. The Open Checkbook documents Birmingham’s budgeting and expenditures dating back to fiscal year 2009. The portal consists of nearly a million pieces of data per fiscal year. “The Open Checkbook portal is helping us uphold our campaign promise of a transparent government,” Woodfin said. “I encourage everyone to visit the portal and see exactly how we’re directing our resources to make Birmingham stronger.” Visitors can view four separate reports: The Annual Report provides the amount of money allocated to each department in the City of Birmingham for each fiscal year. The Budget to Actual Report shows the money budgeted for each department and how much money was spent on each department for every fiscal year. Neighborhood Allocations allows visitors to view all money allocated to each neighborhood association for all 99 neighborhoods. Transaction Report details all individual transactions made from each department, with detailed descriptions. To access the portal, visit birminghamal.gov. Find the Open Data portal on the top menu bar, then click Transparency.
Randall Woodfin’s ambitious plan for Birmingham: a look at promises kept and works in progress
During his campaign for mayor Randall Woodfin made a bevy of promises to the people of Birmingham to revitalize the city and help restore trust in local government. Many of the promises he said he would accomplish within his first 100 days in office. Surpassing 100 days in office last month, Mayor Woodfin commemorated his first 100 days in office by presenting The Woodfin Way, his 2018 mayoral transition report, during an event at the Alabama Theatre in Birmingham, Ala. As part of our efforts to hold state leaders accountable, Alabama Today decided to look back on Woodfin’s specific 100 days campaign promises and see where he is on accomplishing them. We allowed his office the opportunity to respond to the outstanding commitments he has yet made and have included additional accomplishments. Investing in Birmingham’s Transportation Infrastructure Within my first 100 days, I would commission the Director of Planning and the City Traffic Engineer to identify priority streets, bridges and sidewalks for inclusion in a four-year capital improvement plan that will inform my Administration’s infrastructure investment priorities. Done Within the first 100 days, I would work with the City Council to adopt a Complete Streets Ordinance to guide all future road projects in Birmingham. Done. In my first 100 days, I would expedite the adoption and implementation of the Sidewalk Master Plan ensuring that our sidewalks are safe and walkable. Done. An Opportunity Agenda for Birmingham Residents and Businesses Within my first 100 days, I would convene a Small Business Task Force of city agencies and Birmingham small businesses to develop a proposal that would automate all of the City processes to obtain licenses and permits, increase transparency in the permitting and procurement process, identify and repeal or reform any city regulations or processes that are unduly burdensome for Birmingham’s small businesses, and create a “one stop shop” for Birmingham’s small businesses that would offer free consultative sessions to small business owners on the City regulatory process. Via the mayor’s office: The Small Business Task Force is scheduled to be launched in the coming weeks. Revitalizing Our Neighborhoods Within the first 100 days, I would work with each City Councilor to appoint 10-member revitalization boards to convene neighborhood hearings and identify neighborhood revitalization priorities for the next four years. Via the mayor’s office: The Mayor has launched monthly town hall meetings in conjunction with each city councilor. In addition, on the matter of neighborhood revitalization, a reminder that once completed the BJCC expansion will generate an estimated $9.9 million each year in additional revenue. For the first time in Birmingham history those funds will be dedicated solely to helping revitalize our neighborhoods. An Inclusive Birmingham for all Residents Hire an LGBT liaison to serve on my executive staff within the first 100 days. Via the mayor’s office: The Mayor announced his intention to establish The Office of Social Justice during The First 100. This office will include the LGBTQ liaison. The office and liaison will be announced in the coming weeks. Restoring pride and trust in City Hall Within the first 100 days, I would identify a City Council sponsor for an ordinance establishing a “participatory budgeting” pilot program where neighborhood leadership and Birmingham residents set the priorities for development projects in their neighborhoods. Via the mayor’s office: The Mayor has publicly stated that he will launch the participatory budgeting pilot program in the next fiscal year due to the lack of time available in this fiscal year. Within the first 100 days, I would meet with each City Council member to identify key shared district priorities between them and my office and commit to resolving these concerns during my first term. Via the mayor’s office: The Mayor has met with each member of the Birmingham City Council to identify key shared priorities. Within the first 100 days, I would assign interagency rapid response teams of city agencies to each City Council member that can quickly address city services issues in their districts. Via the mayor’s office: The Mayor will announce the interagency rapid response team in May 2018. Within the first 100 days, I would commission the City Chief Information Office to make my travel schedule and expenditures easily accessible and searchable on the City website. Via the mayor’s office: The Mayor will announce a major transparency initiative in May 2018 which will include the travel schedule. Within the first 100 days, I would eliminate the funding used for Mayor Bell’s security detail and reinvest the savings into the Division of Youth Services. Half-way done. Woodfin downsized the detail by one officer, after promising to eliminate it. Banning any relatives of the Mayor from working for the City in any role that could influence procurement decisions. Via the mayor’s office: Work is pending to address this issue. Within the first 100 days, I would work with the City Council to adopt a nepotism policy that would ban any of my close relatives from working for the City in any role that involved procurement decisions. Via the mayor’s office: Work is pending to address this issue. Other promises Work with our state delegation to institute term limits so that no Mayor of Birmingham – including myself – can run for more than two consecutive four-year terms. Done. After I win on October 3, 2017, I will begin the process of appointing transition teams for each city agency, commission, and board. Done. Other milestones the Mayor’s office is touting: Launched executive search for six city department heads Held weekly mayor staff meetings and department head meetings Served 8,000+ citizens more than 11,000 meals in warming stations Reinstituted employee COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) and longevity pay Launched new city websiteLaunched customer and employee-centric initiatives Secured unanimous vote on BJCC renovation and expansion project Instituted ticket distribution fair practices Hosted Public Works Employee Engagement Addressed major facilities Issues (elevators, heating, air) Launched Operation Step Up Hosted inaugural State of the Community event
Kay Ivey celebrates first 100 days in office
Governor Kay Ivey has been in office for exactly 100 days. There’s no denying we’ve seen a lot of action on her part trying to steady the ship of state from the disarray she inherited from the Bentley administration. Ivey was catapulted to the governorship in April when her predecessor former Gov. Robert Bentley suddenly resigned amid an impeachment investigation following allegations he used state resources to cover up an affair he was having with one of his former aides. Although she’s had a long career in Alabama politics having served as lieutenant governor and state treasurer among other positions, many wondered who the overnight governor was questioning whether or not she’d be able to get Alabama back on track. And that she has. As the state’s first Republican female governor, and only the second female governor Alabama has ever seen, Ivey has already established herself as a formidable governor who’s ready to tackle the state’s toughest challenges. In an interview with the Associated Press, Ivey said moving forward she wants to focus on education, infrastructure and economic development going forward, but declined to discuss specific proposals. Ivey has yet to make a decision regarding running for governor in 2018. Watch the video Ivey released on her 100th day in office below:
Bradley Byrne: The first 100 days
We are now over 100 days into the Trump Presidency and this era of unified Republican government. Despite what some in the mainstream media may say, a lot has been accomplished. In fact, more bills have been signed into law by President Donald Trump in his First 100 Days than any President since Harry Truman. Many of these bills have focused on rolling back costly and unnecessary government regulations. All told, cutting these regulations is estimated to save around $18 billion a year. Quite possibly the most important and consequential event of the First 100 Days was the nomination and confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Gorsuch understands that it is his job to uphold the law, not rewrite the law through judicial rulings. His confirmation reasserted a 5-4 balance on the Supreme Court in favor of more conservative judges. President Trump also appointed a first class team to help lead our government, and all of his cabinet secretaries are now confirmed and in place. From Attorney General Jeff Sessions to Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly to Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, this is a team of leaders who understand the importance of keeping the American people safe, enforcing the law, and growing our economy. Speaking of the economy, it has made important strides in the early days of the Trump Administration. Over 500,000 new jobs have been created, and the unemployment rate is at its lowest level since May 2007. The President is also looking out for American workers by pushing for fair trade deals and cracking down on bad trade practices. These changes are especially important to the steel industry, which is a key part of our local economy in Southwest Alabama. President Trump is also cracking down on illegal immigration, which has resulted in illegal border crossings hitting a 17 year low. The President has made clear that illegal immigration will not be allowed and that there will be serious consequences for those who enter our country illegally. It is wonderful to see our immigration laws actually being enforced. For those of us who support the pro-life movement, the First 100 Days have been a huge success. As one of his first acts, President Trump reinstated the “Mexico City Policy,” to ensure no taxpayer money goes to non-governmental organizations that perform or promote abortion. We also had a huge victory when the President signed our bill blocking a rule that would have forced states to fund Planned Parenthood. On national security, President Trump has sent a clear message that America is back, we are standing strong, and we mean what we say. Our allies know that we will support them and our adversaries realize there will be consequences for their actions. The President, with the help of Congress, is also making progress to rebuild our military and ensure our troops have the tools they need to get the job done. President Trump, along with Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, has also made important progress in turning things around at the VA. Just last week, they announced the creation of a new Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection to help identify and resolve issues at the VA. I am also thrilled to see the President advocating for increased veteran access to private medical care through the VA Choice Card program. The good news is that our work is just getting started. I still expect progress on important issues like health care, tax reform, infrastructure, trade, and much more. There is no doubt the challenges facing our nation are great but so are the opportunities. • • • Bradley Byrne is a member of U.S. Congress representing Alabama’s 1st Congressional District.
Beyond 100 days, Donald Trump faces more legislative challenges
President Donald Trump would get additional military funds, but no border wall dollars under a massive spending bill that Congress agreed to Sunday night. The $1 trillion plus spending agreement — which would fund virtually every federal agency through September — came just after Trump marked 100 days in office without any significant legislative wins. The bill does not deliver everything the White House sought, but it would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during Trump’s time in the White House. The House and Senate have until Friday at midnight to pass the measure to avert a government shutdown. Trump has spent his first 100 days coming to terms with the slow grind of government even in a Republican-dominated capital, and watching some of his promises —from repealing the nation’s health care law to temporarily banning people from some Muslim nations — fizzle. The spending measure funds the remainder of the 2017 budget year. Aides to lawmakers involved in the talks announced the agreement after weeks of negotiations. It denies Trump a win on his oft-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but gives him a down payment on his request to strengthen the military and funding for additional border security measures. Despite a renewed White House effort push, the House did not vote last week on a revised bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Health Care Act. After the original effort failed to win enough support from conservatives and moderates, Republicans recast the bill. The latest version would let states escape a requirement under Obama’s 2010 law that insurers charge healthy and seriously ill customers the same rates. The overall legislation would cut the Medicaid program for the poor, eliminate fines for people who don’t buy insurance and provide generally skimpier subsidies. Critics have said the approach could reduce protections for people with pre-existing conditions. But during an interview with “Face the Nation” on CBS aired Sunday, Trump said the measure has a “clause that guarantees” that people with pre-existing conditions will be covered. Trump said: “Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I just watched another network than yours, and they were saying, ‘Pre-existing is not covered.’ Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I mandate it. I said, ‘Has to be.’” Trump said during the interview that if he’s unable to renegotiate a long-standing free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, then he’ll terminate the pact. He also spoke about tensions with North Korea. Asked about the failure of several North Korean missile tests recently, Trump said he’d “rather not discuss it. But perhaps they’re just not very good missiles. But eventually, he’ll have good missiles.” Trump also said he is willing to use the trade issue as leverage to get China’s help with North Korea. “Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade.” And he acknowledged the presidency is “a tough job. But I’ve had a lot of tough jobs. I’ve had things that were tougher, although I’ll let you know that better at the end of eight years. Perhaps eight years. Hopefully, eight years.” Also this week, the president will welcome Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House. And he’ll head to New York City on Thursday where he’ll visit the USS Intrepid to mark the 75th anniversary of a World War II naval battle. On Sunday morning, Trump headed to Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. The White House did not immediately clarify whether he was holding meetings or golfing. Trump marked his 100th day in office Saturday with a rally in Harrisburg, where he continued to pledge to cut taxes and get tough on trade deals. “We are not going to let other countries take advantage of us anymore,” he said Saturday in Harrisburg at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center. “From now on it’s going to be America first.” Trump’s rally Saturday night in Harrisburg offered a familiar recapitulation of what he and aides have argued for days are administration successes, including the successful confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, his Cabinet choices and the approval of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
D’oh! ‘Simpsons’ needle Donald Trump ahead of 100-day milestone
“The Simpsons” is taking on President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office in a short animation released online. The clip shows an animated Trump in bed at the White House counting up accomplishments as president, like lowering his golf handicap and increasing his Twitter following. The video also imagines the president’s daughter, Ivanka, taking Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg‘s seat on the Supreme Court. The video ends with Marge and Homer Simpson taking in the news on TV at home and Marge complains that she’s out of the antidepressant Prozac that was supposed to last her “the whole four years.” “The Simpsons” has gotten some political predictions right in the past. A 2000 episode of the series joked about Lisa Simpson taking over in the Oval Office from Trump. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump at 100 days: ‘It’s a different kind of presidency’
For nearly 100 days, President Donald Trump has rattled Washington and been chastened by its institutions. He’s startled world leaders with his unpredictability and tough talk, but won their praise for a surprise strike on Syria. He’s endured the steady drip of investigations and a seemingly endless churn of public personnel drama. “It’s a different kind of a presidency,” Trump said in an Oval Office interview with The Associated Press, an hourlong conversation as he approached Saturday’s key presidential benchmark. Trump, who campaigned on a promise of instant disruption, indirectly acknowledged that change doesn’t come quickly to Washington. He showed signs that he feels the weight of the office, discussing the “heart” required to do the job. Although he retained his signature bravado and a salesman’s confidence in his upward trajectory, he displayed an awareness that many of his own lofty expectations for his first 100 days in office have not been met. “It’s an artificial barrier. It’s not very meaningful,” he said. Trump waffled on whether he should be held accountable for the 100-day plan he outlined with great fanfare in his campaign’s closing days, suggesting his “Contract with the American Voter” wasn’t really his idea to begin with. “Somebody put out the concept of a 100-day plan,” he said. One hundred days are just a fraction of a president’s tenure, and no president has quite matched the achievements of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who set the standard by which all are now judged. Still, modern presidents have tried to move swiftly to capitalize upon the potent, and often fleeting, mix of political capital and public goodwill that usually accompanies their arrival in Washington. Trump has never really had either. A deeply divisive figure, he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton and had one of the narrower Electoral College victories in history. Since taking office on Jan. 20, his approval rating has hovered around 40 percent in most polls. Trump’s early presidency has been dogged by FBI and congressional investigations into whether his campaign coordinated with Russians to tilt the race in his favor. It’s a persistent distraction that Trump would not discuss on the record. Furthermore, his three months-plus in office have amounted to a swift education in a world wholly unfamiliar to a 70-year-old who spent his career in real estate and reality television. For example, his two disputed travel ban executive orders are languishing, blocked by federal judges. On Capitol Hill, majority Republicans muscled through Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, but had to blow up long-standing Senate rules to do so. Then there was the legislative debacle when Trump’s own party couldn’t come together to fulfill its long-sought promise of repealing President Barack Obama‘s health care law. H.W. Brands, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said Trump is learning that “the world is the way it is for a whole bunch of complicated reasons. And changing the guy at the top doesn’t change the world.” Trump won’t concede that point. But he acknowledged that being commander in chief brings with it a “human responsibility” that he didn’t much bother with in business, requiring him to think through the consequences his decisions have on people and not simply the financial implications for his company’s bottom line. “When it came time to, as an example, send out the 59 missiles, the Tomahawks in Syria,” Trump said of his decision to strike a Syrian air base in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack. “I’m saying to myself, ‘You know, this is more than just like 79 (sic) missiles. This is death that’s involved because people could have been killed. This is risk that’s involved.’” “Here, everything, pretty much everything you do in government involves heart, whereas in business most things don’t involve heart,” he said. “In fact, in business you’re actually better off without it.” As for accomplishments, Trump cited “tremendous success” on an undefined strategy for defeating the Islamic State group. He talked at length about saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars on the price of F-35 fighter jets. Trump held meetings during the transition and in the White House with the CEO of Lockheed Martin, which produces the F-35, but the cost-savings were already in the works when he took office. He promised a tax overhaul plan that would give Americans a tax cut bigger than “any tax cut ever.” A man accustomed to wealth and its trappings, Trump has embraced life in the Executive Mansion, often regaling guests with trivia about the historic decor. With the push of a red button placed on the Resolute Desk that presidents have used for decades, a White House butler soon arrived with a Coke for the president. It’s too soon to say whether the presidency has changed Trump in substantive ways. He’s backpedaled on an array of issues in recent weeks, including his critiques of NATO and his threats to label China a currency manipulator. But his self-proclaimed flexibility means he could move back to where he started just as quickly. Stylistically, Trump remains much the same as during the campaign. He fires off tweets at odd hours of the morning and night, sending Washington into a stir with just a few words. Trump still litigates the presidential campaign, mentioning multiple times during the interview how difficult it is for a Republican presidential nominee to win the Electoral College. He is acutely aware of how he’s being covered in the media, rattling off the ratings for some of his television appearances. But he says he’s surprised even himself with some recent self-discipline: He’s stopped watching what he perceives as his negative coverage on CNN and MSNBC, he said. “I don’t watch things, and I never thought I had that ability,” he said. “I always thought I’d watch.” For the moment, Trump seems to have clamped down on the infighting and rivalries among his top White House staffers that have spilled into the press and created a sense of
