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Tuscaloosa Attorney News
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We have news items here related to the lawyers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
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AEA vows to oppose charter schools
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MONTGOMERY | The state teachers association said Monday it will oppose proposed charter school legislation and will seek suspension of a new education budget law because it will cut education appropriations by at least $108 million next year.
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February 7th, 2012
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States spread the word that its the law to give emergency vehicles room
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More than 170 law enforcement officers in the United States have died after being struck by motor vehicles since 1999, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers’ Memorial Fund.
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February 4th, 2012
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Creating jobs tops Legislative sessions agenda
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In the 2012 legislative session that begins at noon Tuesday, Republican lawmakers will continue the agenda they started when the GOP became the majority party in the Alabama Legislature two years ago.
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February 4th, 2012
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Senator proposes changes to lighten immigration law
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February 4th, 2012
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Study says immigration law has economic costs
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The state's illegal immigration law has potential economic costs and probably has not caused the unemployment rate to drop as the law's co-sponsor claims, according to a study by the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama.
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January 31st, 2012
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GOP says no repeal of immigration law
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MONTGOMERY | Alabama's immigration law is headed for a rewrite in the 2012 legislative session, but Republicans vow it won't be repealed.
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January 29th, 2012
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Suit filed against ex-Partlow workers
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The mother of a former resident at W.D. Partlow Developmental Center has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against six former employees of the facility.
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January 28th, 2012
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Ethics law proposal allows gifts to teachers
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MONTGOMERY | Legislators are proposing changes to the ethics law that would allow seasonal gifts of up to $100 to teachers, but would limit gifts for other groups of public employees to only a nominal value.
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January 27th, 2012
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County school board faces lawsuit over gay issues
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January 26th, 2012
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Tuscaloosa County residents hear from lawmakers at 'Meet Your Legislators Night'
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By Wayne Grayson
Staff Writer
TUSCALOOSA | Tuscaloosa County residents had a chance Tuesday night to hear from their state legislators at the Bryant Conference Center during “Meet Your Legislators Night.”
Local lawmakers spoke and took questions from voters concerning issues likely to come up during the upcoming legislative session, which begins Feb. 7.
Just about every seat inside the Rast Room was occupied during the event, hosted by the League of Women Voters of Greater Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the UA Retirees Association.
Each Tuscaloosa County legislator was invited to the event and six were in attendance: Republican representatives John Merrill and Bill Poole; GOP senators Greg Reed and Gerald Allen; and Rep. Christopher England and Sen. Bobby Singleton, both Democrats.
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January 25th, 2012
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Proposed bill would toughen laws against copper theft
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The copper wiring that four men allegedly stole from construction zones in the tornado-damaged Forest Lake neighborhood last weekwould have netted a couple of dollars per pound at a scrap metal recycler. By contrast, the cost to a homeowner to replace an air conditioning unit with the copper wiring removed could run into the thousands.
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January 24th, 2012
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Miglionico picked for Ala. Womens Hall of Fame
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A University of Alabama law school graduate who went on to be the first woman elected to the Birmingham City Council will be inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame on March 1.
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January 24th, 2012
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Bill calls for all in school by 6 years old
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MONTGOMERY | Some powerful groups are backing bipartisan legislation that would lower the mandatory age for children to start school to 6 years old. Under existing law, children must start school by age 7.
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January 24th, 2012
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UAH professor's lawyers face witness challenges
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The attorneys for a former University of Alabama in Huntsville professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting are facing challenges to secure expert witnesses.
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January 23rd, 2012
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Forestry Commission may have to repay $14.4M
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By Dana Beyerle
Montgomery Bureau Chief
MONTGOMERY | The Alabama Forestry Commission should repay $14.4 million in federal grants because the money was improperly spent on general operations, according to an interim report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General.
State Forester Linda Casey said Friday that the issue stems from the commission’s former grant accounting system, which had been in place for 27 years but was no longer acceptable to the inspector general’s office.
“That $14.4 million is absurd and it’s not going to have to be paid back,” Casey said. She said state and federal officials plan to meet Tuesday to discuss the grants and the commission’s new accounting system.
The U.S. Forest Service, part of the Agriculture Department, recommended changes to Alabama’s operations and said its recommendations will be completed by April 30, according to the inspector general’s report, dated Nov. 23. It was posted on the Agriculture Department’s website on Jan. 10.
The Alabama Forestry Commission was awarded three federal stimulus grants of about $17.3 million, Casey said. The money was used to eradicate the invasive and habitat-destroying cogon grass, re-establish longleaf pine trees, and to conduct prescribed burning, she said.
The grants were part of $28 billion in stimulus money included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The U.S. Forest Service received $1.15 billion and allotted Alabama its share.
“Congress, in enacting the Recovery Act, emphasized the need for accountability and transparency in the expenditure of funds,” the Office of Inspector General’s interim report said.
The the inspector general’s office said federal regulations require that all costs charged to grants should be tracked separately and that grant money should be spent only on activities that support the grant.
Alabama commingled most of its grant money and pooled it with regular operating funds, the inspector general’s office report said. “Therefore, it was not possible to identify which of the commingled charges related to grant work and which did not,” the report said.
Efforts to reach U.S. Department of Agriculture and inspector general’s office officials Friday were unsuccessful.
The inspector general’s office said the Forestry Commission’s accounting system did not comply with federal regulations. The inspector general’s office said the Forestry Commission’s chief financial officer either wasn’t aware of or misinterpreted federal grant accounting requirements.
Casey said the state has never had a problem with grants in the 27 years the accounting system has been in place.
Casey said her chief financial officer was unaware of the new requirements but after learning of them, designed a new accounting system. (The inspector general’s office said the Forestry Commission has no written guidelines on its accounting system, and that it was described orally by the chief financial officer.)
“We scrapped our old accounting system and rebuilt it and restated it from 2009-2011 and we accounted for every penny,” Casey said.
The inspector general’s office said that the Forestry Commission’s flawed accounting system was not identified by the U.S. Forest Service as being incapable of performing required financial assessments before awarding grants.
Commingling grant funds reduces spending accountability, the inspector said. For example, the inspector general’s office said commingling salaries of all employees in the pool including high-level managers not working on the grants produced an hourly wage rate of nearly $52 charged to the grants.
The inspector general’s office said it conducted a 2.5-year audit of thousands of commingled costs from the $17.3 million in grants and came up with a refund amount of $14.4 million.
One of the recommendations by the inspector general’s office is to postpone future grants to the Forestry Commission until it can convince federal officials that it can properly account for them.
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January 23rd, 2012
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Groups unite to fight immigration law
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Hispanic grass-roots community leaders and supporters from across Alabama and throughout the nation gathered in Tuscaloosa on Saturday to form a stronger and more educated front in their fight against HB56, the immigration law passed by the Alabama Legislature in June.
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January 22nd, 2012
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Farmers mull plans after immigration crackdown
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It’s unclear whether farmers in Alabama and Georgia will face a shortage of workers because of tough new laws targeting illegal immigration, but some producers said they have begun changing their plans for planting and harvesting this year’s crops.
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January 21st, 2012
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GOP candidates seek local support
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In his first statewide race as a Republican, former attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Charlie Graddick said he hopes to improve the local court system if he is successful in his bid for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.
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January 20th, 2012
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Alabama death row inmate wins new hearing over mail mix-up
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An Alabama death row inmate deserves a new court hearing because his lawyers at a top-flight New York firm abandoned him, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in a case one justice called "a veritable perfect storm of misfortune."
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January 19th, 2012
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Bentley says at MLK event
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By Dana Beyerle
Montgomery Bureau Chief
MONTGOMERY | When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke near the Capitol steps at the conclusion of the famous Selma-to-Montgomery march 47 years ago, a segregationist governor watched from his office while huddled behind a curtain.
On Monday, a different white governor stood on those steps and addressed the crowd during the annual tribute to the civil rights leader.
While perhaps unremarkable today that a white governor, and a Republican at that, would attend a largely black event, in the minds of older celebrants, Gov. Robert Bentley’s brief speech at the Martin Luther King Jr. tribute was an indication of how far race relations in Alabama have come.
State Rep. Alvin Holmes, who organized the event, said Bentley wasn’t shamed into appearing at the event, which was attended by several thousand people.
“He wanted to come,” said Holmes, D-Montgomery. “He called me three times asking if we were still planning it.”
Bentley, Holmes and state Rep. John Knight, D-Montgomery, grew up in the segregated South. They have witnessed King’s efforts result in the end of official government segregation, which blocked blacks’ access to voting, employment, accommodations and transportation.
“Be like King” was the message Monday from Bentley, a conservative Republican who was born in rural Shelby County and who took office one year ago today after representing Tuscaloosa in the Legislature.
“It’s a pleasure to be here to celebrate the birthday of a great man,” said Bentley, who retired from his Tuscaloosa medical practice after more than three decades to run for governor. “He meant a lot not only to the entire state but to this country.”
Bentley said the April 27 tornadoes that killed nearly 250 people in Alabama brought blacks and whites together during the recovery.
“As we meet the difficulties, let’s continue Dr. King’s message to be brothers and sisters,” said Bentley, who attended a unity breakfast earlier in the day in Huntsville.
The late King was born Jan. 19, 1929. He was the pastor of a Baptist church one block from the Capitol and led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott that broke the back of Jim Crow segregation in public transportation. It propelled him to a national leadership role.
President Lyndon Johnson signed the civil rights bill into law in 1964 after King’s passionate 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington. King in 1965 led a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery. Violence started by then-Gov. George Wallace’s state troopers horrified a nation and led to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The march from Selma ended with King’s speech at the foot of the State Capitol steps, with Wallace peeking out his office window. They never met. King died in May 1968, assassinated while in Memphis. Wallace later said he renounced his segregationist past.
Holmes noted that a flag pole on the dome of the Capitol that served as a backdrop to speeches by Bentley, House Speaker Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, and local officials once supported a Confederate battle flag. Ironically, the state also observes Jan. 19 as the birth date of Civil War Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Holmes and Knight, who are black, are members of the most integrated Legislature in the country. Alabama’s House and Senate roughly reflect its white-black population ratio.
Although only individuals know what is in their hearts, on the surface race relations have improved, Holmes and others said.
Samuel L. Webb Jr. of Tuscaloosa, a retired history professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who grew up in the rural Black Belt, said race relations are better than “when I was a kid, no question.”
He said Alabama’s racial past was so bad that a lot of people would like to forget that it occurred. “The truth of the matter is in a lot of places and in some of the more educated and affluent areas of this state you scratch hard enough that old racism is still there,” Webb said.
Knight said legal segregation no longer exists but that discrimination remains in employment and economic opportunities.
“Nobody can deny the changes since the 1950s and 1960s but the challenge is to continue the progress we’ve made,” he said.
Knight and Webb said that having a black president, Barack Obama, sometimes brings out true feelings disguised as political rhetoric.
“I had fellow came up to me and start just blasting Obama. He has no real specifics why he despised Obama so much,” Webb said. “I just told him it’s race.”
The fact that the King observance was attended overwhelmingly by blacks indicates that barriers between blacks and whites still exist. Bentley’s inauguration a year ago today was mostly a white affair.
Holmes said Bentley’s appearance at the King tribute was “good for the state” that has received national attention over a controversial anti-immigration law that Bentley signed last year. The law is being challenged in federal court.
Bentley said the law isn’t based on racism but on the federal government’s refusal to enforce immigration laws.
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January 17th, 2012
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Democrat qualifies for chief justice
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Shelby County attorney Harry Lyon, a frequent candidate, qualified Friday as a Democrat for chief justice, giving the winner of the March 13 Republican primary a fall opponent.
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January 14th, 2012
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Lawmaker discusses splitting Huntsville campus from UA system
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By Dana Beyerle
Montgomery Bureau Chief
MONTGOMERY | A state legislator from Madison County said the University of Alabama in Huntsville should consider separating from the three-
campus UA System.
And a Jefferson County legislator agrees with his Madison County colleague that the UA campuses in Birmingham and Huntsville don’t get enough respect from the UA System board of trustees.
Rep. Phil Williams, R-Monrovia, and Rep. Jack Williams, R-Vestavia Hills, said their campuses are ignored by UA System trustees. The lawmakers said that they believe the board favors the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Gov. Robert Bentley, an ex-officio member of the UA System board and its president by virtue of his office, said he would oppose any split.
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January 13th, 2012
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Taco Casa, Hokkaido work to resolve 15th Street dispute
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By Stephanie Taylor
Staff Writer
TUSCALOOSA | The give-and-take that has characterized much of the rebuilding effort in Tuscaloosa played out this week between two tornado-damaged 15th Street restaurants.
Attorneys for the owners of Taco Casa on Wednesday filed a complaint in Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court, asking a judge to stop Hokkaido from rebuilding eight feet from 15th Street and a foot away from the Mexican fast-food restaurant's property. Taco Casa and Hokkaido owners agreed Thursday afternoon to try to reach a compromise, rather than seeking a judicial solution.
In a court hearing Thursday, Tuscaloosa County Circuit Judge Scott Donaldson examined the case and encouraged both parties to work on a compromise that would accommodate the interests of each business, said Justice D. Smyth, an attorney with Lewis, Smyth & Winter, P.C who represents Taco Casa Inc.
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January 13th, 2012
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Beason to challenge Bachus for GOP nomination
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A sponsor of Alabama's new immigration law, state Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale, will run for Congress against 6th District incumbent Spencer Bachus in the Republican primary March 13.
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January 12th, 2012
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Master Gardener classes set to begin on Feb. 21
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Master Gardener classes set to begin on Feb. 21
The Tuscaloosa County Extension Office will offer an Alabama Master Gardener course beginning Feb. 21. The class will meet from 5-9 p.m. on Tuesdays for 17 weeks in the extension office at the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse Annex, 2513 Seventh St.
Topics covered in the volunteer training program include home lawn maintenance, vegetable gardening, plant propagation, weed management and landscape design. The cost is $125. Applications are available at the extension office. Space is limited. For information, call extension agent Neal Hargle at 205-349-4630.
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January 12th, 2012
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