The man behind the councilman

After two months of research, gathering FOIA-ed military documents and interviews with more than 60 people, my feature profile on Anniston’s most polarizing city leader finally ran. Check out this past Sunday’s edition of The Anniston Star or click here to read the story.

Anniston City Councilman Ben Little's senior picture from 1975 Hemingway, (S.C.), High School yearbook.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Benjamin Little arrived in Anniston in 1984, driving a silver Chevrolet Chevette and sporting the close-cropped haircut of an Army man.

He drove alone. His wife of one year, pregnant with their son, followed in another car.

Little took exit 185 off Interstate 20, drove straight through Oxford and Anniston without noticing much of anything and stopped only once he reached “the woods.”

Back then, Anniston was nothing more than another “regular Army assignment” to the man who has years later become its most polarizing city figure.

“I had no idea I would be staying here,” Little said in a recent interview.

He would stay. More than that, he would come to see himself as a leader for black residents, a champion of individual rights, a whistleblower on political wrongdoing.

It’s a vision of himself that overlooks what his political foes frequently point out: his inability to compromise, use of intimidation to get what he wants, racial rhetoric when he does not.

But before all of this — before the councilman, before the pastor, before the drill sergeant — there was the boy. The boy running wide open down a dirt road, swinging up onto his aunt’s porch, sneaking bites of sweet homemade preserves. The boy cropping tobacco and hitching a mule cart to the family dog. Going to church on Sundays, basketball practice in the afternoons. Dreaming at nights about seeing the world.”

Read more:Anniston Star – Ben Little’s path to Anniston produced a man who supporters and opponents agree doesn’t bend

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The sound of sirens … or silence

This story about the funding for weather sirens served as a follow-up to last week’s Sunday piece on the end of the Chemical Stockpile Preparedness Program in Northeast Alabama’s Calhoun and surrounding counties.

Spare speaker drivers for outdoor weathers sirens in Cleburne County, Ala. CAMERON STEELE

CSEPP money paid for those counties to have first-rate public safety equipment while the Army burned its stockpile of chemical weapons at the Anniston Army Depot.

Millions of federal dollars went toward emergency alert  and communication systems — like the 800-megahertz radio system in Calhoun and Talladega counties. (Read last Sunday’s story about the future of that system here.)

CSEPP money also covered the cost of the six counties’ outdoor weather sirens that sound whenever there is a tornado threat — like the devastating one that ripped through the area last year on April 27.

Now, with the chemical weapons in Anniston gone, the federal dollars are going away, too.

As a result, officials in Calhoun, Talladega, Cleburne, St. Clair, Clay and Etowah counties have to figure out how to pay for the maintenance of these high-tech weather sirens.

Or they have to take them down. Read about those decisions — and the status of Cleburne County’s sirens in particular — here.

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“Over but not out”

I pulled this Sunday story for The Anniston Star together in a week — no small feat when you’re trying to understand the technicalities of a radio system that covers 1,300-square miles across two counties.

Writing and researching about public safety communication systems may seem boring. It was, at first.

But as I got into the story, I found this interesting: The efforts by local officials to work together and pay for this top-of-the-line system … the time spent planning and organizing … the attention to small details and the big picture of enhancing public safety in Calhoun and Talladega counties.

Read the story here: Over but not out

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Radios, sirens and good-bye federal $$

The countdown has begun … on April 1, the public safety agencies across Calhoun and Talladega counties that use the region’s top-of-the-line radio system to communicate will begin to pay for that use. Then, federal money that for years covered the hefty cost to maintain the 14 800-megahertz towers will run out. The Chemical Stockpile Preparedness Program will be over.

But the need for the 800-MHz system — the so-called “Cadillac” of public safety communication systems — remains. Local police, firefighters and EMS workers point to the ease with which they talked to each other in the wake of last year’s tornado as proof. While other public safety officials in places like Tuscaloosa and Birmingham suffered from downed cell-phone coverage and incompatible radio systems, first responders in Calhoun County communicated via radio without a hitch.

And that communication ability is something they’re willing to pay for — at $22.50 per radio per month to be exact. A new local board — created last year by the state Legislature -- will assume control of the 800-MHz system in April when the federal money runs out. In anticipation of that transfer, the board is busy working out the kinks with county government and EMA officials — from spending the last of the CSEPP dollars on spare parts and insurance to gathering inventories of radios, microwave chips, and other technological equipment.

It’s a big transfer — one that board chairman Mike Fincher calls unprecedented. The main issue is funding: Will the 3200-odd users who’ve agreed to pay for radio communication that was once free be enough to support what’s expected to be a $600,000 (or more) per year system? What happens when a microwave chip or generator fails?

And how will Calhoun, Cleburne and Talladega counties fund the weather-alert sirens now that CSEPP funds are almost gone and the new 800-MHz board has decided not to pay for them? Are those sirens even necessary anymore — now that many people receive weather alerts on their cell phones, by e-mail and from indoor NOAA weather radios?

Local officials’ answers to those questions and more are coming in my Sunday story for The Anniston Star. I’ll examine the transfer of the radio system, the funding for the sirens and the biggest challenges facing the new board. Check it out!

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Listening to Connie

Pulitzer winner Connie Schultz recently visited Jacksonville State University to talk journalism, writing, politics and story-telling. I was lucky enough to interview her before she arrived and even luckier to listen to her speak as part of the Ayers Lecture Series at JSU. 

Schultz sticks with me, as a female journalist, because of her strength, her no-nonsense attitude and her ability to connect with audience (whether she’s speaking or writing.)

During our phone conversation, we talked about (what felt like) everything — from starting out in journalism, to the disgust we felt towards Rush Limbaugh for his recent misogynistic comments to our favorite novels. 

Her top two works of fiction?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and To Kill A Mockingbird

I’ve never read the former but will now. She told me I’d love it. And after listening to her talk at JSU, I’m pretty sure she knows a good story. Anyway, here are my stories about her recent visit:

Connie Schultz preview

Connie Schultz speech
 

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Delays and dilemmas

The Sunday story is out and in print; visit The Anniston Star’s website to read about the case backlogs, evidence delays and prison overcrowding in Alabama.

Want solutions to the problems? The next story in the series focuses on those and will run in Monday’s paper.

Plus, Here’s a short video package about Calhoun County Circuit Clerk Ted Hook’s decision to retire:

Stress, staffing issues lead to circuit clerk’s retirement from Anniston Star on Vimeo.

Enjoy your Sunday!

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Justice Delayed

Welp, in my new role as The Anniston Star‘s enterprise reporter, I spend the majority of my time writing investigative, enterprise and feature stories for the Sunday paper.

(Time-out for mini-celebration: Woohoo!)

The first series I’m working on examines how cuts in state funding for Alabama’s courts and criminal justice system are causing serious problems — from case backlogs in the courthouse to delays in state forensic labs to the alarming overcapacity of Alabama’s prisons.

The first of many stories to come will run in Sunday’s paper.  Here’s a brief excerpt:

“The state’s courthouses, police departments, prosecutors and prisons perform some of the most basic, most vital functions of government, but that doesn’t mean they automatically get the money officials say it takes to serve the public well. In fact, automatic cuts seem to be the norm these days – cuts resulting in smaller staffs, closed offices and delays in services.
A $13.1 million decrease in state funding for the courts between fiscal 2011 and 2012 led to layoffs of more than 400 employees last year. Now, all of Alabama’s courthouses are operating at 40 percent below the workforce levels suggested by a national non-profit study.

For the state Department of Forensic Sciences, slashed budgets have meant closed doors and shuttered facilities. Most recently, the $3.9 million decrease in state funding over the past four years has resulted in the closing of three satellite laboratories, including one in Anniston. Now, drug cases around the state are stalling – with suspects out on bond or sitting in jail – without the necessary test results to move them forward or have them dismissed.

And Gov. Robert Bentley’s proposal of level funding for the Department of Corrections in fiscal 2013 means the state’s overcrowded prisons – the 29 facilities are 191 percent over capacity – will stay that way if nothing is done to change the rate at which people are incarcerated or the length of their sentences.

The whole system has slowed down, officials said, and the forecast doesn’t look much better. The state general fund faces a $366 million budget shortfall in the next fiscal year, and Bentley has pledged not to raise taxes. His 2013 proposal calls for the elimination of some state agencies and cutting funding for most others, including sweeping cuts to those agencies that support the justice system.”

Check out The Star website on Sunday for the full story!

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