County View

By Jeff Poor

I am still holding out hope this recently acquired gig at Lagniappe will land me the job of ghostwriting Commissioner Stephen Nodine’s autobiography. That’s sure to put me in a high enough tax bracket so I can finance one of the luxury condominiums proposed downtown.

In the meantime, I will just have to admire the lure of downtown’s most redeeming qualities from the window of the Starbucks in Government Plaza when I make my bi-weekly journey from Cottage Hill to be fascinated by our county leaders and their open meetings.

Saraland the innovator?

Although the people of Daphne chose not to follow Saraland’s lead and create a separate school district in Baldwin County, it is a trend that could be gaining momentum among Mobile’s smaller municipalities.

The decision Saraland voters made didn’t surprise District 5 Mobile County School Board Member Bill Meredith. Meredith, who’s district encompasses the southern portion of Mobile County, told Lagniappe last month if the voters of southern Mobile County wanted to create their own school system, he would support it whole-heartedly.

“I’m not a big fan of large school systems,” said Meredith.

According to the Mobile Chamber of Commerce Web site, the Mobile County Public School system has 8,125 total employees making it by far Mobile County’s largest employer and one of the top 10 employers in the state.

“That’s Saraland’s business if they want their own school system,” said Meredith. “I hope Saraland understands what Saraland has gotten itself into.”

My conservative impulse tells me one large school system would be more cost-effective than several smaller school systems. For example, one school system would require one superintendent as opposed to several school superintendents. However, large bureaucracies are rarely efficient, and if the people of one these municipalities are willing to foot the bill, more power to them.

Good quality schools are one of the ingredients that have prevented Saraland and Satsuma from experiencing the unprecedented growth Spanish Fort and Daphne have. The area has solid infrastructure with U.S. 43, I-65 and the under-utilized I-165 into downtown Mobile, decent police protection and residential development sprouting up everywhere. With those elements in place, it looks like a pretty solid bet the people of Saraland made. Other outlying communities like Theodore, Bayou La Batre, Semmes and West Mobile are sure to take notice, signaling the eventual demise of the humongous Mobile County Public School system as we know it.

Juan Chastang takes a hit

County Commission President Juan Chastang took a hit with the political capital he invested into going after the long-time county administrator, John Pafenbach, for knowingly employing an illegal Filipino immigrant.

District Attorney John Tyson, Jr. cleared Pafenbach’s good name, indicating that the act of keeping Roberto Concepcion employed was urged at the discretion of federal investigators.

Chastang was left behind eating crow and with probably a new sense of awkwardness between him and Commissioners Stephen Nodine and Mike Dean. Nodine, who is not historically known for exercising caution in some matters as he did in this case, may have lost some ground in any effort for three-peating as Mobile Bay Monthly’s “Wackiest Politician” when voting comes around in the fall.

Gov. Bob Riley and the local Republican Party took a lot of heat when Chastang was appointed last year. This dissention is an indicator that Chastang isn’t going to be a puppet of Dean or Nodine, as some suggested early on and that should be comforting in some regard. But before calling for heads to roll, Chanstang should have waited until Tyson made his statement concerning the matter.

Home-rule comes to Mobile County

On June 6, voters in the unincorporated parts of Mobile County passed a referendum called “The Alabama Limited Self-Governance Act.”

The Alabama Constitution of 1901 gives county governments very little law-making power, leaving the bulk of the burden on the state legislature. According to Commissioner Stephen Nodine’s June 2006 newsletter, the county will now have “the authority to pass ordinances (with public notice) to conduct nuisance abatement for the following issues: weeds, junkyards, litter and rubbish, noise, pollution, unsanitary sewage and animal control.”

The home-rule phobia has been making its rounds on the talk radio airwaves for the last several months. The underlying fear is that county officials will tell citizens in Mobile County what they can or cannot have on their property and that the libertarian allure of living outside the city limits will be severely diminished.

A trip up U.S. 45 to Citronelle and beyond to the Washington County line makes the case of the necessity for some sort of goverence in these regards. Unkept property strewn with litter and overgrown with weeds doesn’t exactly set a good tone for potential county development.

If I owned land in unincorporated Mobile County and my property value was lowered because my neighbor didn’t want to move his rusted-out 1966 Plymouth out of his frontyard under the premise that he is exercising some God-given liberty only available to rural dwellers (not because he really thought it had aesethic value or perhaps was just too lazy to have it moved), I’d have voted in favor of the referendum too.

It is no accident this passed by a margin of 12,012-9,070 in Mobile County, nor is this a product of any deception by our county commission when similar referendums are being passed throughout the state.

At the risk of sounding like an elitist, it’s time the folks in unincorporated Mobile County tried to move beyond priding themselves in mimicking Gretchen Wilson song lyrics or resembling Jeff Foxworthy punchlines. The passage of the referendum is a signal they want to move in that direction.

Contact Jeff Poor at jeffreypoor@yahoo.com.

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