Thomason Tracts

Oklahoma company acquires Alabama Adventure - Business News from The Birmingham News - al.com

So, let’s check in on a past Wacky Scheme, the Wacky Scheme that made Larry Langford, “Visionland”, the peculiar idea he had as mayor of Fairfield that what western Jefferson County really needed was an amusement park built at public expense.

So, how’s that going? Well, the name’s been changed to “Alabama Adventure”, which is a bad name but probably better than “Visionland”. The municipalities which paid for Visionland wound up dumping the park on a private company in 2003, which now has dumped the park on some Oklahomans who used to work for Six Flags. They kept land around the park, however, which is probably what they were interested in all along.

So, it’s going about as well as possibly could be expected. The cities took a huge bath on the fiasco, but Crazy Larry escaped unharmed, off to Do Something first for Jefferson County and now Birmingham.

Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford offers to treat school board to breakfast in effort to ease tensions- al.com

Gosh, why all the tension? Just because he’s repeatedly (and, admittedly, with good reason) criticized the school board, wants to sell its headquarters, and this week stuck it with a bill for sidewalk repairs in order to spend more money on the Fair Park boondoggle? Let bygones be bygones! Have some grits.

BMLL:

Langford said city government and the school board have a common goal of improving the city, but the fighting helps no one.

“All these little personalities and personal agendas need to be dropped at the door, and come in and focus on the issues at hand,” he said.

It goes unspoken that by issues he means “doing what I want”. Let’s just say that the tension will continue:

Board member Howard Bayless called the meeting political grandstanding and said he was unsure if he would go.

“There’s really no intent on the part of this mayor or this council to work with anybody,” he said. “They’re obviously only interested in trying to push their own personal projects forward, and it’s obvious that Birmingham schoolchildren will suffer.”

Board member Phyllis Wyne said the board, the council and mayor all represent the same people and should have the same goals of moving the city forward. But she said city officials make decisions that affect the schools without any input from the school board.

“I don’t like to fight with the mayor, but if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes,” Wyne said.

Why can’t these selfish, selfish people just do what Larry wants?

Birmingham woman told police she thought it OK to leave sleeping children home alone with oven and burner on; one died- al.com

The “mental defect” part of “not guilty by reason of mental defect” does not normally include “being rock-stupid”.

Group proposes Montgomery-to-Panama City toll road- al.com

I know I’d pay a good bit. That is the most boring drive on the face of the earth. It’s been a while since I made it, but I doubt it’s improved. Last time, by the time I made Elba I thought that the cows were repeating.

The spokesman for this private effort seems to be Luther Strange, who is a giant loser. By that, I mean that he’s 6-7 and he lost the Lieutenant Governor’s race to Little Jim Folsom in ‘06.