First female state finance director starts Monday

MONTGOMERY

Marquita Davis

Marquita Davis will make history Monday when she becomes Alabama’s first female finance director.

Davis, 44, commissioner of the Department of Children’s Affairs for Gov. Robert Bentley and his predecessor, Gov. Bob Riley, in a recent interview said her groundbreaking appointment didn’t register until it was pointed out to her.

“I did not think about it and didn’t realize it,” she said. “I never even thought I was the first woman. (I thought) surely that’s not true.”

Davis, appointed Aug. 23 by Bentley, succeeds David Perry, who becomes Bentley’s chief of staff. Perry succeeds former chief of staff Chuck Malone, whom Bentley appointed as chief justice of Alabama.

Davis will be sworn in at 9 a.m. Monday by Bentley in a ceremony at the Capitol. She will be the state’s second African-American finance director.

“When the announcement went out about the position, there was no reference about race or gender,” Davis said. “The focus wasn’t on that. I think Alabama should be proud of it.”

Although Davis’s background isn’t in finance, previous finance directors didn’t have pure finance backgrounds, either. Perry and his predecessor, Jim Main, were attorneys, although Perry was an assistant finance director.

Bentley is confident of Davis’ ability to be the state’s chief financial officer and adviser.

“She is, I felt, one of the shining stars of my cabinet,” Bentley said Friday.

“I just know she can do an outstanding job as finance director because it takes managerial skills, which she has. People can learn the budget, and she had a very large budget in the agency (where) she worked.”

Davis since 2008 has been commissioner of the Department of Children’s Affairs.

She moves to the forefront of the administration in a powerful and visible position. The finance director is the chief financial officer, advises the governor on fiscal policies and enacts his directives.

Davis said she’s had to deal with state finances as an agency head.

“We do have some real financial issues we’re going to face as a state,” she said. “My hope is that we have a very thoughtful process, look at department needs and the central needs of state government and make informed decisions as we allocate scarce resources.”

Both budgets are in proration until the Sept. 30 end of the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Next year’s General Fund and Education Trust Fund budgets are anemic compared with some recent budget years. Davis will be the point person for Bentley’s 2012-2013 budget when the Legislature convenes in regular session early next year.

“I think there is understanding from the Legislature that we have to figure out how to make this work, what’s the impact of the budget across the state and what we do in Montgomery more collaboratively to make all the difference,” Davis said.

She didn’t start out to be a top state government finance officer. Her parents met in North Carolina. Her father was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. She grew up in Peoria, Ill., where her mother was a teacher and her father an employee of a heavy equipment manufacturing company.

Davis graduated from Northern Illinois University. She chose a historically black college, Alabama A&M in north Alabama, for a graduate degree. She earned a doctorate in early childhood education and child development from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Davis has served as deputy director of Child Development Services at the Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity in Birmingham.

She said she has a good feel for the state’s finance system.

“My current position in state government gives me an interesting perspective, because I’ve been on the other side of the budget issue presenting a budget and saying this is what I want and how much I need,” she said.

“I have a good understanding — not great, and there’s always room for improvement — but a good understanding of state government, the basics of the governing process and the performance process, and (the) basics about the department’s responsibilities maintaining fiscal responsibility of the citizens’ money,” she said.

Davis said she “was drafted” for the position.

“(Bentley) called me over to his office and we were talking, and he said, ‘So, Dr. Davis, did you ever think about doing anything else in my administration?’” she said. “I said, ‘What do you have in mind,’ and he said, ‘Finance department.’”

Davis said Bentley told her, “I need someone who manages people and understands budgets, someone I can trust, someone who has good character and is loyal and a quick learn and quick study.”

She said, “I was flattered he would ask me, and I said, ‘I will pray about it.’’

She took six days to accept.

“What better place to be an advocate and a voice for families. It’s going to be an interesting experience to say the least. I think to be a part of government in such times, you really have to be courageous,” she said.

Attempted murder case dismissed in Baldwin County after victim fails to appear

BAY MINETTE, Alabama -- A case against a Daphne man accused in a September 2010 drive-by shooting in the Daphmont community has been dismissed.

Julien D. Hardin

Julien D. Hardin was facing charges of attempted murder, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment and was scheduled for a jury trial last week in Baldwin County Circuit Court. But Judge Charles Partin on Sept. 12 granted a defense motion for dismissal.
"The alleged victim didn’t show up for trial and we moved for a dismissal for want of prosecution. The judge granted my motion," said defense attorney Pascal Bruijn.
The victim, who was the only witness to the crime, couldn’t be located, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
According to police reports, the victim had said he was walking along Gaskin Lane in Daphne when a vehicle pulled up beside him then left. It returned with Hardin leaning out and opening fire, striking the victim in the leg, police said.

Jasper man killed in single-car crash in Walker County

JASPER, Alabama 
A Jasper man was killed Saturday in a single-car crash in Walker County, Alabama State Troopers report.

Cody Lee Elliott, 21, died in the 3:30 a.m. crash on Burrows Crossing Road, about five miles north of Jasper, according to a troopers report. Elliott was driving a 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse.

The wreck remains under investigation by troopers.

Alabaster school system future hinges on tax, consultant says

ALABASTER, Alabama --Alabaster is the right size, its demographic profile is good, and the opportunity for commercial growth is optimal.
In terms of revenue, all the city needs to create a separate school system is a 1-cent sales tax increase, according to education consultant Ira Harvey of Decision Resources.
That's his conclusion in the 200-plus page report on the feasibility of the city breaking away from the Shelby County school system and forming its own within its boundaries.
Of course, many issues would have to be resolved before the city could go it alone, but having a solid revenue base is the greatest necessity.
"Since the rate of sales/use taxes that is considered the reasonable maximum statewide is 9 percent, and since the citizens of Alabaster only currently pay 8 percent, an increase may well be a rational source for additional revenues," Harvey writes in the report he presented to the City Council recently during the first of three public forums on the topic.
The city would receive all ad valorem taxes set aside for schools that are paid by residents who live within the Alabaster city limits; it also would assume any debt associated with the property.
"Should you separate, your municipal boundaries are the boundaries of the city school system," Harvey said. "Should you separate, you would become a school tax district, and ad valorem taxes collected in the new tax district would go to the school system.
"You're automatically going to get the millage rate prior to the separation," he said. That rate is 30 mills, which Harvey called "a very high tax rate."
Based on the average daily attendance ("average daily membership" in school lingo) for last school year, the Alabaster school system would have received $10,514 per student. The actual county per-student revenue was $9,811, according to Harvey. The city's per-student share would have been larger because it would not have to receive disbursements from the county general fund.
The next public forum is scheduled for Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. in the City Hall annex. Harvey and members of the City Council have been fielding questions and hearing concerns from residents at the meetings.
City officials say they don't have specific answers to many of the questions because a vote on forming a separate system has not occurred. Should the council decide to form its own system, then negotiations on some topics would be necessary.
Shared services are at the top of the list of issues. For example, about 18 special-needs students who attend the Linda Nolen Learning Center live in Alabaster. That center is a county school and is situated in Pelham. Alabaster would have to work with the county to come up with an arrangement so those students could continue to attend classes at the center.
The alternative school is in the city limits of Alabaster, as is the teacher instructional services center. Both serve the entire county. The county's school of technology is in Calera; it is attended by students throughout the county, including Alabaster.
Another potential problem is linked to students who attend schools in Alabaster but who live outside the city limits. About 500 students fall into that category. Should those children be allowed to continue to attend the city schools, the county would lose that funding since, according to Harvey, "state money follows the kid; county money follows the kid; federal money follows the kid."
In addition to the centralized services, Alabaster is home to six schools: Creek View and Meadow View Elementary; Thompson Intermediate; Thompson Sixth-Grade Center; Thompson Middle; and Thompson High.

To read the entire feasibility report, click on the link below. 
http://www.cityofalabaster.com/education-feasibility-study/sp/483

Sen. Quinton Ross, acquitted in Alabama bingo trial, questions the prosecution's motivations

Alabama state Sen. Quinton Ross

MONTGOMERY, Alabama
Sen. Quinton Ross, D-Montgomery, said like most students he learned in civics class about the branches of government and the separation of powers.
He said he didn't learn that the Department of Justice could kill a bill in the Alabama Legislature.
"I just couldn't quite find where an agency had an ability to come into those constitutionally protected branches of government and stop their processes, that being the Department of Justice swooping into the state of Alabama and stopping the legislative process. That was a new lesson to me," Ross said.
Sitting in his seventh-floor Senate office a month after his acquittal on extortion charges, Ross questioned the motivation of the investigation that led to the trial. He also expressed gratitude for an outpouring of encouragement he said he received from supporters and constituents.
The nine defendants in the case were accused of offering or accepting bribes in connection with a 2010 gambling bill that would have authorized a statewide referendum on letting casinos operate electronic bingo machines. The jury acquitted Ross and lobbyist Bob Geddie. Jurors returned a combination of not guilty verdicts and deadlocked decisions against the remaining seven defendants, who will face a second trial in January.
"It was a surreal experience. But the God that I serve prepared me and took me through this," Ross said of his indictment and two-month long trial.
During the trial, Ross would stand silently behind his attorney, H. Lewis Gillis, as Gillis addressed reporters. Silent no more, Ross said he thought the case may have been announced and directed out of Washington, D.C., but was about "Alabama politics."
"The Justice Department, they tout the fact that they don't do anything political. In their opening statement they said this is not about politics as usual, this is about vote-buying. But as it unfolded for 10 weeks, it was about politics," Ross said.
"We live in a country of laws. We have the scales of justice. Justice should not be twisted in order to accomplish a political goal," Ross said.
Public investigation
In his questioning of the motives behind the case, Ross pointed to the decision by the Department of Justice to make the investigation public. An FBI agent testified that some Justice Department officials had concerns about letting potentially tainted legislation proceed and a decision was made to inform legislative leaders about the case. The bill never got a vote in the Alabama House of Representatives after that.
"You have just infringed upon the right of four-point-something million people in the state of Alabama because a few of you decided that it was a tainted piece of legislation," Ross said.
The Montgomery Democrat said investigators seemed to want to get a "photo op" of him in handcuffs. Ross also pointed to comments by Republicans picked up when prosecution witness Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, wore a wire. They discussed how a gambling referendum on the general election ballot would bring black voters to the polls lured by free rides on "HUD-financed" buses and promises of free buffets from casino owners.
"It was in their own taped conversations what would happen," Ross said.
Prosecutors have not talked to reporters in the case. But in the courtroom, they vehemently disputed defense assertions that state politics played any role in the case.
"This case is not about gambling. It's certainly not about politics. This case is about two things. It's about corruption. It's about greed," prosecutor Justin V. Shur told jurors. Another prosecutor noted that they worked for the Obama Justice Department and not the Alabama GOP.
'Perplexed'
Ross said he learned two or three weeks before the 2010 indictment that prosecutors were going to bring charges against him and he was "perplexed" by it.
"I thought there had to be some kind of mistake," Ross said.
Ross was accused of trying to extort campaign money from VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor and Country Crossing developer Ronnie Gilley. Lobbyist Jennifer Pouncy testified that Ross was "demanding" in his fundraising request and she told authorities she considered the request a "veiled threat." But during the trial his defense lawyers repeatedly pointed out Ross never threatened to vote against, or harm, the bingo legislation that the pair were pushing.
"I was the innocent from the beginning," Ross said.
Prosecutors hammered at the fact that Ross called the casino interests several times, but Ross said that is simply what you do during fundraising.
Ross said he was looking straight ahead when he stood to hear the verdict read in court. He wept as the jury foreman began reading the not guilty decisions.
"Tears just began to run down my face. They were tears of joy. As that was being read I was thinking about my son, thinking about my 2-year old, my family, thinking about all the people in the community that have stood behind me, the churches, the prayers," Ross said.
Legal costs
Ross said his legal bills have topped $1.2 million.
"You say spent. I still owe," Ross quipped.
A legal defense fund has been established on his behalf, and no, McGregor hasn't offered to help him with his bills, he said.
During the trial prosecutors brought out that Ross, a one-time sponsor of gambling legislation, for a time was being paid $6,600 a month by Greenetrack.
A former high school principal who has a doctorate in education, Ross said the contract with his company, The Ross Group, was to assure the success of students in Greenetrack's scholarship program. He said the work involved tracking their progress, providing mentoring and other services.
Despite his strong words, Ross insists that he is not angry.
"The one thing I was determined not to do was internalize this and become angry," Ross said.
Doing so, the senator said, would only damage himself and the ones he loves.
"When this started, my words in a letter to my constituents was that it was well with my soul. And it is," Ross said.

Moon jellyfish clog Alabama and Mississippi coastal waters

MOBILE, Alabama
Swarms of moon jellyfish the size of dinner plates ring the barrier islands off Alabama and Mississippi.

Credit:Ben Raines

They are drifting around Fairhope, washing up on Petit Bois Island, and so plentiful in Orange Beach it looks like you could use them as stepping stones to walk from one side of Perdido Pass to the other.

While the moons don’t sting, feeling their heavy, gelatinous bodies brush against arms and legs as you swim through a cloud of them ranks among the least pleasant sensations to be had in the Gulf of Mexico. Ranging from pale pink to white, moons have short tentacles and a distinct, four-leaf clover design in the center of their bell.
August and September are typically the biggest jelly months on the coast, but it looks as if local waters are home to an especially big crop this year.
“We’ve had a lot of trouble. There were a couple of weeks before the storm where we quit shrimping over around Tensaw because we couldn’t even pick up the nets for all the jellies,” said Larry Scott, who shrimps in Mobile Bay to supply his bait shop, Scott’s Landing on the Causeway.
“It reached a point around the Battleship where we couldn’t shrimp at all. It’s not bad now — we’ve got all the freshwater from the storm. It’s pushed them all back down the bay. But for a while there, people couldn’t even fish for speckled trout.”
Scientists said it is too early to say if this was a big year for jellies all over the Gulf, but with thousands of jellies washed up on the beaches along the Mississippi Sound, the verdict for Alabama and Mississippi is in.
The area has a lot of jellies right now due in part to wind, currents and tidal action that brought large numbers of the creatures to shore this summer. While jellyfish can swim a little bit, for the most part they drift at the mercy of ocean currents.
“They tend to accumulate along the edges of the shore. It helps them in terms of reproduction to stay concentrated,” said Monty Graham, head of the marine science department at the University of Southern Mississippi.
He said the large groups seen clumped together on the surface in recent photos taken by the Press-Register are jellies at the end of their life cycle.
“When they get on the surface like that, they’ve spawned out. They are usually close to the end of their lives once they are on the surface,” Graham said. “Nothing good happens to a jelly on the surface.”
Moon Jellyfish populations fluctuate on a 10-year cycle
Graham said that scientists were slowly teasing apart the dynamics that control the Gulf’s population from year to year. A key finding, he said, is that on a grand scale, jelly numbers tend to fluctuate on a 10-year cycle, meaning a decade of high jellyfish numbers, followed by a decade of low numbers.
Right now, we are at the beginning of a decade of high numbers, he said, cautioning that predicting whether next year will be a big year remains tricky.
“The one prediction I’m comfortable with, when we enter into these eight- to 10-year cycles, we’re good at picking that up. The year-to-year numbers, so much depends on water currents,” Graham said. “But, when we enter into these eight- to 10-year phases, it seems to go every other year. Like two years ago, we had a lot, then last year, during the oil spill, we had very few. Now, this year, it looks like a lot again.”
Kelly Robinson, a graduate student studying jellyfish at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, made a discovery in 2010 that may shed light on why some years have bigger jelly populations than others. Colder-than-average water temperatures in the spring seem to correlate with big jelly years, going back several decades, Robinson found.
Follow-up laboratory experiments suggested that jellyfish reproduce more effectively in colder water.
Robinson said the results of an ongoing federal study “will help us validate the jellyfish-climate relationships we think are happening in the Gulf.”
Robinson corresponded with the Press-Register via email from Madrid, Spain, where she is attending an international jellyfish conference organized in response to a perception “that jellies are on the rise.”
Decrying the lack of hard evidence, she said that the Sea Lab will participate in the JEDI project, an international effort to track global jelly populations more closely.
In some places around the world, close relatives of the moon jellies in Mobile Bay have been blamed for wiping out native fish populations. In July, swarms of moon jellies clogged the water intake pipes at a nuclear power plant in Scotland, forcing the plant to close for a week, according to media reports.

Birmingham fire damages units in apartment building near Oporto-Madrid Boulevard

Birmingham, Al.

A three-alarm fire at Sunrise Pointe Apartments left an entire 10-unit building damaged and its residents displaced Saturday night, according to Birmingham Fire Department spokesman C.W. Mardis.
Firefighters answered the call at 7704 Sunrise Drive at 8:12 p.m. and saw fire coming from the building's roof upon arrival, Mardis said.
"Five of the units were heavily damaged when the roof collapsed, and the other five had water and smoke damage," the battalion chief said.
The fire likely was accidental, and Mardis said the probable cause was cooking food left unattended.
No one was injured in the blaze, he said.
The Red Cross was called in to assist the residents who could not return to their homes, and firefighters remained on the scene to ensure the blaze would not reignite.
The apartments are near Oporto-Madrid Boulevard at Interstate 20/59.