The police department, working collectively with churches and other civic organizations, are doing an amazing job in reducing the violent crime rate and making our streets safe to dwell in. However, one murder is too many! Any life taken before its destiny is fulfilled is tragic, but especially when the innocent lives of our youth are cut short there must be outrage! Our police department must have the resources necessary to keep our streets safe. Safe streets means busy, downtown shoppers boosting the economy with spending while enjoying the great entertainment tradition of Birmingham.
The arts, entertainment, and sports districts in Birmingham have a rich heritage and we need to continue to encourage up and coming young artists to develop and use their creative talents to produce family-friendly atmospheres in our entertainment districts.
The sharpest tools for educating our children are our parents! Therefore, investment in empowering our adults is key for city attractiveness and advancement. It’s no secret strong schools equal strong communities, which grow, thrive and attract businesses.
The educational system in our city has a superintendent as chief executive officer and an elected school board as its legislative and judicial officials. The appointed superintendent is held accountable by the school board. School board members are held accountable by you, the voter. Communication and relationship must be established between parents and their children along with their teachers, principals, and representative school board members. We, as adults and parents, must assume full responsibility for the education of our children! The family is the primary educator in a child’s life. After that, the church and the school should be the most important voices shaping a student’s mind, not their peers, the media, or the entertainment industry! Help your students protect their minds and hearts by learning to guard their eyes and ears. Empowerment comes through knowledge. Knowledge of what’s truth makes you free to learn, study, live, and lead!
A few short decades ago 90% of every educational tax dollar went directly to educating the child in the classroom. Today, that number is about 50%, with the missing 40% going to “mid-level” administrative salaries. That must change! Security for a job well done is important, but poor educators should not be able to hide within the protective walls of the “system” with little or no accountability. As the head goes so goes the body. Therefore, as the principal goes, so goes the school. Each school must have a strong, intelligent, qualified, passionate principal leading the way toward educational excellence.
Together, as mayor, parents, teachers, pastors, and community leaders of Birmingham we can see academic excellence in this generation, the generation that will be making decisions for us one day as future leaders of society.
Healthy things grow and reproduce, or in the case of businesses, produce. Production means jobs. Jobs means money for family’s income as the record jobless rate decreases! Income equals progress towards financial stability and security. The word economy is literally defined as “stewardship of the house.” A steward is one who manages another’s property and financial matters. As the head of the administrative branch of city government, the mayor is responsible to fully advise the council of the city’s financial condition and needs of the city along with preparing and submitting the budget annually to the council. The mayor’s duties also include the administration of the budget once adopted. Therefore, the mayor is a steward of your hard earned dollars and is accountable to you, the people of the city. How do you want him to spend your money?
We must provide confidence to existing business owners in Birmingham while making ourselves attractive to new businesses with entrepreneurial minds at the helm. Some of the city’s former highest revenue generating businesses have left our city and moved to towns just outside our city limits because of the tax rate. What attracts businesses? Give tax breaks to businesses. Businesses will thrive. If businesses thrive, they can hire more workers who will thrive. When the worker thrives, the economy will thrive once again.
It’s been said, “If a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat.” Should there be assistance for those who can’t work? Yes! But no assistance should be continually given to those who won’t work. I believe in a free market abundance mentality where hard, legal, moral, and ethical work is rewarded. I believe lower taxes means smaller government and more money for the consumer to spend and invest as they see fit. Government’s duty is to protect and serve its citizens, not be their source for every need in their lives. I do not believe in redistribution of wealth, which is based on a mindset of scarcity and limitation. There are no limits to hard work. Ask the steel workers who shed their blood, sweat, and tears in our soil and laid the foundation for the city we call home!
The greatest power to create wealth resides within the hearts, minds, and wills of every individual worker that calls himself or herself a citizen of Birmingham.
By definition, integrity is complying with a set of moral and ethical principles as well as being of sound character. Leadership, according to John Maxwell, is defined simply as influence. Therefore, those that have influence, such as a mayor, must have and adhere to a clear set of right and wrong standards that exist outside of themselves. In other words, in a generally moral relativistic culture, “if it’s right to me then it must be right for all” society, integrity in leadership can mean different things to different people. This mentalality creates chaos, with no evident measuring stick for an individual’s behavior, thus, communicating to an entire generation there is no absolute truth. However, for righteousness and justice to exist and prevail, we must all ascribe to an objective standard that applies to every one of us. Laws, like absolute truth, are that which applies to all people in all places for all times. The mayor and his office are not above the law. The mayor’s message must first be modeled clearly with his lifestyle. He, as chief administrator of all the city’s affairs, must exemplify the kind of qualities he will expect from those under his authority, including every departmental leader. A wise international leader once said, “a king establishes the land through justice, but he who receives bribes overthrows it.” Corruption and greed annihilate, but integrity and generosity bring abundance.
Birmingham needs honest, open, transparent, accountable leadership that can influence other city leaders, our families, businessmen, educators, and all of society with strong, positive, moral dealings both publicly and privately.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”-Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776.
Every person’s basic God-given right is to life, from the womb to the tomb! Life must be respected from the cradle to the grave. The shedding of innocent blood always has a price attached to it-violence in the streets. If we disrespect the very essence of life itself, including the One who is and gives Life, we will never fully respect and protect the roles of manhood and womanhood. If a man fails to mature spiritually, emotionally and intellectually as he matures physically, he will not be able to function properly as a man, a husband, and a father. Fathers, or
paternal figures, were designed to establish the “
pathways and
patterns” for sons and daughters to follow in. No fathers equals wandering children struggling and searching for identity and destiny. Fathers lead families through protection, provision, and proclamation of the truth. Healthy, nurturing fathers and mothers in wedlock raise esteemed children and together strong families build strong churches and strong communities. Communities that truly have “common unity” and a clear vision achieve great things.
Passion means suffering and sacrifice, but provides the pathway to greatness. Birmingham has seen its share of suffering and sacrifice, so all we have to do is walk together in united footsteps on the prepared pathway.
Birmingham’s divisive past actually reveals the key that unlocks her great destiny for the future. Cities, like individuals, were created with a specific purpose in mind and have inherent within them the necessary tools to achieve the greatness that lies within. However, just as individuals can wander from their intended destiny, so too can cities. One oftentimes only needs to have revelation of their intended destiny to understand how it may have been perverted so as to prevent the dream from coming to pass. It’s time to fight against those things that have held us back and move forward to that which we were created for!
The key to Birmingham’s future health, growth, and prosperity is found in one word-unity! Unity begins with humility, compared with division, which is rooted in pride. “United we stand. Divided we fall.”- Aesop, John Dickinson, Patrick Henry. Just as a human body can not function fully if any part of it is cut off or disabled, so to a fragmented city is limited in its ability to be completely productive. We can and must work together at every level of government, beginning with the mayor and city council.
We need to recognize what’s hindering us, take responsibility for our individual roles, and rally together to see Birmingham restored to a city of refuge, hopes, and dreams once again.
