By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 23, 2019 When George Wallace entered the governor’s office for his second term in 1971, he took direct aim at Alabama Power Company and its frequent fights with the Public Service Commission (PSC) over rate increases. Wallace hired lawyers to oppose these rate increases. He also fought this monopolistic utility giant for more than a decade while he was in office. He never trusted them. By 1978, Attorney General Bill Baxley had joined Wallace in his fight against Alabama Power’s rate increases. Wallace and Baxley were fighting for poor people, middle-class consumers, senior citizens on a fixed income, and small business owners. They did not want these consumers ripped-off by Alabama Power’s outrageous rate increase requests. Wallace used his influence over all branches of state government -- the PSC, the Legislature, the judicial system -- to deny Alabama Power the rate increases it said were needed to finance new power plants. Once Wallace left office in 1987, Alabama Power Company made a corporate decision to conquer the political scene in such a way that the company would never again be vulnerable to a populist governor. In the pursuit of this corporate goal, the company bought or rented every politician in the state who was “for sale” or “for rent.” Alabama Power unleashed an army of lobbyists to wine and dine greedy, self-centered, legislators who were nothing but "political whores.” Eventually, Alabama Power seized control of the three-member PSC and the state’s judicial system. In 1990, Alabama Power Company formed a non-profit foundation to hand out charitable gifts. Every group with any meaningful influence in Alabama that was not directly controlled by the company’s campaign contributions, advertising dollars, sponsorship agreements, and consulting agreements, was silenced through Alabama Power’s tens of thousands of cash awards to the “deserving” entities chosen by the company since 1990. To counter scrutiny from investigative journalists, Alabama Power hired big-name reporters away from their newspapers and electronic media outlets. Then, the company found creative ways to financially support Cliff Sim’s Yellowhammer News (which was founded in 2011) and Bill Britt's Alabama Political Reporter (which was also founded in 2011). In the last decade or so, Alabama Power Company was able to neutralize struggling daily newspapers like The Birmingham News, The Montgomery Advertiser, The Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press Register by using a combination of advertising dollars, event sponsorships, and consulting fees for seminar participants affiliated with these entities. This approach bought Alabama Power Company a form of protectionism from adverse media coverage. Alabama Power also controls many of the popular “talk radio” programs in Alabama through advertising dollars and event sponsorships. Local television media outlets have been relegated to a low-priority status because they lack the resources to engage in serious investigative journalism. In 2016, the Alabama Power Foundation funded a non-profit organization that purchased The Birmingham Times. This newspaper was owned by Dr. Jessie Lewis, a successful black businessman and former president of Lawson State Community College in Birmingham. On a historical note, The Birmingham Times teamed up with George Wallace and Bill Baxley in 1978 to fight a request by Alabama Power Company for a gigantic rate increase that year. During the rate increase hearing, lawyers representing the Legal Services Corporation of Alabama, Wallace, and Baxley used a gripping story in The Birmingham Times to support their case against the rate increase. The Times' story quoted a local man who recounted his painful ordeal with Alabama Power. He stated: "I have four children. It was about the coldest day of the year when they (power company workmen) came out and cut off my electricity. I had not received a light bill. I went down to the office and wanted to pay half of my bill, and they refused me. I told them that I had not received my bill, and they said it was my mistake-not theirs. I didn't have anywhere to take my family that night, and one of my daughters caught the flu. She almost died." After that night, the man said his family began using kerosene lamps for light. This story humanized the plight of Alabama’s working class citizens and helped to stall the PSC’s action on the rate increase for many months. Ironically, The Birmingham Times would not be in a position to publish this story today because the newspaper would be biting the hand that feeds it. Even if it could publish the story, it would not matter one iota to a PSC that is totally controlled by Alabama Power Company. This is the “new normal” in Alabama politics. Regulated businesses are using lobbyists, campaign money, charitable donations, sponsorship packages, consulting agreements, and a host of other nefarious schemes to buy favorable treatment from legislators, judges, regulators, and media organizations. This “new normal” state of being for regulated businesses is also prevalent at the federal level, as evidenced by Boeing’s cozy relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration. As a result of Boeing’s air-tight control of the FAA, two brand new, unsafe, Boeing 737 MAX airplanes fell out of the sky and killed 346 innocent passengers and crew members in crashes since last October. The United States and other nations around the globe had to literally ground these unsafe 737 MAX jetliners in March to prevent further deaths. Finally, Alabama Power Company has built a political fortress around the company since George Wallace left office in 1987. Its customers are underwriting the cost for this fortress each time they pay their power bills. On top of that, the taxpayers of Alabama carry the unfair burden of guaranteeing Alabama Power Company a five percent minimum annual return on the company’s equity. Whenever there is a shortfall in this guaranteed return on equity, taxpayers must make up the difference. PHOTO: Alabama Power Company's Birmingham, Alabama headquarters.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 22, 2019 Yesterday, I published an article titled, “Thank you, Alabama Power Company.” The article covered Sherman Industries’ press statement yesterday that the company may not move its downtown concrete batch plant to the Five Points West community and may seek an alternative site that is zoned for this business. In the article, I described Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin as a “political puppet” of Alabama Power Company. A few Woodfin supporters and some of my perennial critics thought this characterization of Woodfin was unfair. I disagree. I am a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. When I write and publish a story, I work hard to make sure it is factually accurate. My critics do not have this affirmative obligation. They are free to throw spitballs and hide their hands. I thanked Alabama Power Company in yesterday’s article because this is the entity that created Mayor Randall Woodfin, financed his campaign, and controls his political agenda. Woodfin was not his own man on the October night in 2017 when he defeated incumbent William Bell in a runoff election, and he is not his own man today. Woodfin is owned “lock, stock, and barrel” by Alabama Power Company. Make no mistake about it, any allegiance Woodfin may have to the residents of the Five Points West community is secondary in nature. What has never been publicly disclosed until today is the fact that Mark Crosswhite, the President and CEO of Alabama Power Company, served as the de facto chairman of the Woodfin Transaction and Inaugural Foundation, Inc. The Foundation is a tax exempt IRS 501(c)(4) Alabama non-profit corporation that was established to (a) fund the transition team’s organizational work and (b) retire Woodfin's campaign debt. In private solicitations to prospective donors, Crosswhite was actually described as the “Chairman of the Woodfin Transaction and Inaugural Foundation, Inc.” In a December 6, 2017 AL.com article, Ed Fields, a senior advisor to Mayor Woodfin, stated that retired Birmingham Southern College president, General Charles Krulak, was the Foundation’s chairman. This representation may have been true on paper, but not in fact. The Foundation raised vast sums of cash for Woodfin from big-money donors in private fundraisers hosted by Crosswhite and Woodfin in late 2017 and early 2018. The Foundation’s donor list and amount of each donor’s contribution have never been made public by the Woodfin campaign. Woodfin, who campaigned on “transparency” and “accountability” in government, has closely guarded the identity of this undisclosed group of donors, which includes various entities in Alabama Power's network of political allies and partners. Interestingly, the Foundation’s private fundraisers were facilitated by the Birmingham law firm of Balch & Bingham, LLP. As I reported in Sunday’s article titled, “Why Randall Woodfin will not fight Sherman Industries,” two of the law firm’s partners, Joel Iverson Gilbert and Steven George McKinney, were indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2017 on charges of bribing former Alabama State Representative Oliver Robinson to block a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiative to add a predominantly black community in North Birmingham to a federal superfund cleanup site. Gilbert was convicted, along with Drummond Company executive David Roberson. McKinney was acquitted. Oliver Robinson pled guilty. Woodfin’s March 15, 2018 Transition Report called “The Woodfin Way” has sections touting his “transparency” and “accountability” in government. Yet, the critical behind-the-scenes fundraising role played by Mark Crosswhite and Balch & Bingham is not mentioned anywhere in the Report. In contrast, the names and roles of dozens of other Woodfin transition team members are prominently listed throughout the Report. As expected, the Report lists General Charles Krulak as the Foundation’s figurehead board chairman. Ms. Bobbie Knight, a former Alabama Power Company senior management executive, is listed as the co-chairperson of the Woodfin Transition Team. When Alabama Power Company, which is the Number 1 air polluter in the state, saw Woodfin engulfed in the searing flames of the Sherman Industries-Five Points West concrete plant controversy, the company stepped in to help Woodfin navigate this sensitive environmental protection issue – at least for now. Woodfin, who is NOT a fighter, did not know what to do about Sherman Industries’ plans to relocate its air pollution-spewing concrete batch plant to the Five Points West community. His PR strategy was to toss this political “hot potato” to an impotent city council and blame the council when the concrete plant became operational in Five Points West. After Sunday’s article ran, Alabama Power stepped in and showed Woodfin how to slow down Sherman Industries’ planned move, at least for a little while. Based upon the careful wording in the company's authorized press statement yesterday, it is not clear whether Sherman Industries' controversial concrete plant relocation plan is dead. The company has NOT pulled its application for an air permit for the Five Points West site. Furthermore, Sherman Industries wants to continue talking to the Five Points West residents about the company's concrete manufacturing process and environmental protection measures for the site. Randall Woodfin has never come clean about the nature and scope of his intimate relationship with Alabama Power Company and Balch & Bingham. The truth is this: Mayor Randall Woodfin can’t take any meaningful environmental protection actions for his political base without getting permission from Alabama Power Company and Balch & Bingham. This is Woodfin’s last secret. PHOTO: Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin meets with neighborhood leaders from the Five Points West community at Sherman Industries' proposed site for its concrete manufacturing plant.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 21, 2019 Yesterday, I learned that Sherman Industries has no intention of withdrawing its plan to relocate the company's downtown air pollution-spewing concrete batch plant to the Five Points West community. The company has decided it can simply run over Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin, ignore the Valerie Abbott-led city council, and crush the neighborhood protests. The HeidelbergCement Group, which is the global parent company of Sherman Industries, has profiled Woodfin and the members of Birmingham’s city council. This German company was a hardcore Nazi collaborator during World War II. Only one of the company’s board members distanced himself from Adolf Hitler as his death machine killed six million innocent Black Germans, Jews, Gypsies, and Gay Germans during the War. Sherman Industries has profiled Mayor Woodfin and the city council members. The company believes they are weak, politically insecure, timid on this environmental justice issue, and are owned "lock, stock and barrel" by Birmingham's business community. As such, the company has zero respect for them. Sherman Industries also believes the company can overpower the neighborhood protestors because the city officials with portfolio responsibility for stopping the company's relocation plan do not have their backs. This is particularly true for Valerie Abbott, whose sole political goal this year was to keep inner-city kids out of George Ward Park by killing Major League Baseball's proposal to locate a $10 million Youth Baseball Academy in the park. In Biblical language, Sherman Industries is a proverbial “Goliath” that is marching towards the front gates of Birmingham’s Five Points West community. Its planned concrete batch plant operations in this community will surely bring premature death, disease, and destruction with it. To date, the warriors on the front line of this battle are mostly women who serve in neighborhood leadership positions. They are mothers and grandmothers who are fighting for the health, safety, and well-being of their children and grandchildren. I admire their courage and commitment to environmental justice. The city’s mayor and council have chosen to fall back and issue “cover-your-ass” press statements voicing their "opposition" to Sherman Industries' plan to operate its concrete batch plant in the Five Points West community. In truth, they have surrendered this community to Sherman Industries without firing a shot. As opposed to assuming the Biblical role of “David,” these city officials (except for District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt) have chosen to flee the battlefield. They have decided that it is far easier to attack me for exposing their lack of courage in this controversial matter than it is to fight Sherman Industries. By now, it is clear to everybody that the city’s mayor and council have been psychologically castrated. They are political eunuchs who do not want to make their political bosses in the Birmingham business community mad with them. They will gladly “go along to get along” with the business community's agenda (no matter what it is) for a pat on the head and campaign contributions at election time. Rather than talking about the serious health-related problems associated with air pollution from concrete batch plants located in residential neighborhoods, these city officials have dispatched their surrogates to attack me for exposing the dangers facing the residents of Five Points West. In their view, this is a safer course of action than serving in the role of “David.” I don’t mind the public criticism and personal attacks, particularly if my investigative articles on Sherman Industries’ concrete plant ultimately save lives. Furthermore, I will gladly step aside on this issue when one of my critics comes to the front line and assumes the role of “David” for the purpose of slaying this “Goliath.” Until that happens, I am going to continue my efforts to save this proud and revitalized neighborhood from a long, slow and painful death. Some critics say I am positioning William Bell for a rematch with Randall Woodfin in 2021. This is total “bullshit” and a smokescreen for the inaction we have witnessed to date. All that matters to me is this: Bell ran Ready Mix USA out of downtown Birmingham when he was mayor. Woodfin is mayor now. I want to see him run Sherman Industries out of the city limits. It’s Woodfin's turn now. He needs to man-up and do his job. Say what you will about William Bell, but at least he had "big balls” when it counted. In early 2017, Bell took a principled stand on an environmental justice issue and ran Ready Mix USA out of the city limits without fanfare or media coverage. He did not punt the ball to an impotent city council. Bell was a real man and acted like one when it mattered the most. Remember, adversity does not build character; it reveals character and courage. Where is our “David”? "Goliath" is here. PHOTO: The brave women of Five Points West are fighting Sherman Industries to keep a dangerous concrete manufacturing plant out of their neighborhood. Birmingham's mayor and council are fleeing the battlefield. Where is our Biblical "David"? "Goliath" is here.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 19, 2019 Residents of the predominantly black Five Points West community of Birmingham, Alabama are desperately trying to stop a dangerous concrete manufacturing plant from relocating to this revitalized community. They have fought long and hard in recent decades to improve the quality of life for the 39,340 people who live in their proud community. Against all odds, they have changed the face and character of their community for the better. Now, the health, safety and welfare of Five Points West residents community are threatened by Sherman Industries, a known commercial air polluter. The company secured its property in this community at a time when black residents were powerless to stop zoning ordinances that allowed commercial polluters like Sherman Industries to dump hazardous waste in the grounds their children played on and the water they drank. They were also powerless to stop particle pollution from commercial power plants and concrete batch plants that contaminated the air they breathed. Sherman Industries is a beneficiary of environmental racism from the 1930s. The company’s authority to locate its pollution-spewing concrete manufacturing plant in the Five Points West community was conferred upon Sherman Industries in the 1930s by an all-white city government that viewed this community as a place to isolate, segregate, and subjugate blacks. In 1933, the residents in this community (and other African-Americans across the South) had "no rights that white men were bound to respect." If they demanded respect, they were lynched. An Accomplice to Modern-Day Environmental Racism Today, Sherman Industries is poised to relocate and operate its air pollution machine in the Five Points West community. It has applied for and will likely receive an air permit from the Jefferson County Health Department after a public hearing on June 6, 2019. Federal regulators, who support President Donald J. Trump’s mission to gut environmental protection regulations, are expected to sign-off on the company’s operations in Five Points West, as well. The State of Alabama, which goes to extreme lengths to protect life inside a mother’s womb, has never cared much about the lives and well-being of its birthed black citizens. As such, Alabama’s Department of Environmental Management is expected to quickly approve Sherman Industries’ operational permits for this neighborhood. The government with a moral obligation under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and legal authority under the Mayor-Council Act to stop Sherman Industries from contaminating the residents of the Five Points West community is the City of Birmingham. Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, the city’s mayor and a majority of its city council are black. What is more, Mayor Randall Woodfin, alone, has the statutory power and authority under Section 4.06 of the Mayor-Council Act to kill Sherman Industries' plan to relocate from downtown to Five Points West. For the reasons explained in this article, Woodfin has failed and refused to exercise his power to save this community. To date, Woodfin has offered empty rhetoric and carefully measured lip-service as a substitute for forceful mayoral action. None of Woodfin’s words has stopped Sherman Industries from going forward with its relocation plan. In the Political World, Money Talks Unfortunately for the residents in the Five Points West community, Mayor Randall Woodfin does not enjoy the political freedom to use the executive powers of his office to kill the concrete plant relocation to their neighborhood. He was “bought and paid for” by the Number 1 air polluter in the state – Alabama Power Company. Alabama Power financed Woodfin’s campaign for mayor in 2017. Together with some of its key vendors and networking partners, Alabama Power raised more than $300,000 of the $586,717 in cash Woodfin reported on his campaign disclosure form for Calendar Year 2017. Some of Alabama Power’s better known corporate friends and political allies who contributed to the Woodfin campaign include: (a) Alabama Power Company Employees State Political Action Committee, $5,000; (b) Gene Hallman’s Bruno Event Team, LLC, $5,000; (c) Protective Life Corporation Political Action Committee, $5,000; (d) Regions Financial Corporation Political Action Committee, $5,000; (e) Shipt, Inc., $1,000; (f) DVA Holdings Company, $5,000; and (g) Alabama Realtors Political Action Committee, $5,000. These contributions did not appear on Woodfin’s campaign disclosure report until after the October 3, 2017 run-off election. In addition to these donations, Alabama Power Company’s financial commitment to Woodfin was fulfilled by campaign contributions from dazzling array of participating PACs, vendors, and individuals that comprise the utility giant’s constellation of political relationships. Included among them is a litany of lawyers (and/or their wives) from the Birmingham-based Balch & Bingham law firm that represents Alabama Power and its affiliate entities. The public is familiar with Balch & Bingham because two of the law firm’s partners, Joel Iverson Gilbert and Steven George McKinney, were indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2017 on charges of bribing former Alabama State Representative Oliver Robinson to block a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiative to add a predominantly black community in North Birmingham to a federal superfund cleanup site. Gilbert was convicted, along with Drummond Company executive David Roberson. McKinney was acquitted. Oliver Robinson pled guilty. Lamell McMorris, a Morehouse College graduate and dependable Alabama Power Company ally from Washington, D.C., signaled his early support for Woodfin on February 20, 2017 with a $1,000 personal campaign contribution. McMorris would later raise tens of thousands of dollars for Woodfin’s campaign from out-of-state contributors that would be credited towards Alabama Power’s $300,000 commitment to Woodfin. As discussed below, McMorris would also play a vital role in Sherman Industries’ ability to slide into Five Points West with no resistance from Mayor Randall Woodfin. Concrete Batch Plants in Residential Neighborhoods Can Be Nixed, but this Result Requires Political Hardball It is universally recognized that air pollution is associated with heart and lung problems and premature death. Large pollutant particles in the air can cause irritation and discomfort, while small, fine pollutant particles from sources such as auto exhaust, power plants, and concrete batch plants can penetrate deeply into lung tissue and the bloodstream. Exposure to fine particle air pollution has been linked to problems with respiratory and cardiovascular functions, including: (a) decreased lung function; (b) asthma; (c) chronic bronchitis; (d) irregular heartbeat; (e) heart attack; and (f) early death in those suffering from heart disease or lung disease. With this in mind, enlightened cities and communities have fought hard to purge concrete manufacturing plants from their city limits, or at least keep them from locating in and around residential neighborhoods. In 2015, Nashville’s municipal government killed a plan by Nashville Ready Mix to relocate its plant to a residential neighborhood. A February 11, 2017 exposé in the Houston Chronicle spotlighted the experiences of residents in the community surrounding Integrity Ready Mix in Houston, Texas. The article disclosed the devastating toll that long operating hours, non-stop noise, and endless air pollution from concrete batch plants are taking on the quality of life in these neighborhoods. In early 2017, Birmingham enjoyed success in ridding itself of one of these concrete batch plant polluters. That year, Mayor William Bell forced Ready Mix USA to move from its downtown location behind the new Social Security building and near a predominantly black residential community to a remote industrial location on Ruffner Road just outside the city limits. Bell accomplished the removal of Ready Mix USA from its downtown site by adamantly refusing to sign-off on the Alabama Department of Transportation’s bridge replacement work on I-20 in downtown Birmingham until Ready Mix USA agreed to relocate its concrete batch plant. In short, Bell did not give the State of Alabama what it needed until he got what he demanded for area residents. Bell used the might of his office, his executive powers under Section 4.06 of the Mayor-Council Act, and hardball tactics to abate a known air pollution operation within the city limits of Birmingham. His executive action was resolute and was taken without fanfare. To date, Mayor Woodfin has shown no signs that he is ready to play hardball with Sherman Industries in order to block the company from cranking up its pollution machine in the Five Points West community. Furthermore, Woodfin has not explained his unwillingness to use the powers of his office to fight the company’s relocation plan. The Art of Seducing and Sedating Birmingham’s Black Community with “Happy News” From 1956 to 1971, The Birmingham News was a willing participant in the FBI’s official COINTELPRO program that was designed to discredit and destroy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Rev. Abraham Woods, Rosa Parks, and a host of other civil rights activists. During much of this period, The Birmingham News published a separate section in its daily newspaper for “colored news” that featured non-controversial blacks. After the formal COINTELPRO program ended in 1971, The Birmingham News continued its COINTELPRO role in an unofficial capacity for the next four decades. In 1953, Dr. Jessie Lewis, a local black entrepreneur, founded The Birmingham Times to provide comprehensive news coverage on topics of interest to the city’s neglected black community. The BirminghamTimes was an important counter-balance to The Birmingham News’ openly hostile COINTELPRO news coverage of black and white advocates for political inclusion, economic empowerment, educational parity, social equality, and the fair administration of civil and criminal justice. In 1979, The Birmingham Times was instrumental in electing Dr. Richard Arrington, Jr., as Birmingham’s first black mayor. In subsequent municipal elections, The Birmingham Times was a substantial force in securing the election of six blacks out of nine total city councilors. On January 28, 2016, The Birmingham Times announced that Dr. Lewis sold his newspaper to the Foundation for Progress in Journalism (FPJ). This non-profit organization was established in 2013 and funded by the Alabama Power Foundation, according to the announcement. IRS records show that the Alabama Power Foundation has poured $185,000 into FPJ since 2016. Regions Bank is also a major sponsor for FPJ fundraisers. Other sponsors include: (a) the Balch & Bingham law firm, (a) the Alabama Media Group (which owns The Birmingham News and AL.com); (c) Joe Perkins’ Matrix LLC; (d) Vulcan Materials Co.; (d) the Alabama Broadcasters Association; (e) the Alabama Press Association; (f) the Birmingham Business Alliance; and (g) BBVA Compass Bank. Lamell McMorris, an early Randall Woodfin’s campaign contributor and fundraising partner of Alabama Power Company, is an FPJ board member. He later played a critical role in facilitating Alabama Power Company’s commitment to deliver $300,000 in campaign donations to Woodfin. Robert Blalock, a public relations spin doctor at Alabama Power Company, is another FPJ board member. Prior to joining Alabama Power, Blalock was a reporter and editorial page editor at The Birmingham News. He is a specialist in molding public opinion on controversial issues. John O. Hudson, III, is FPJ’s board chairman. Hudson is a licensed attorney and highly respected corporate leader who now serves as executive vice president and chief external and public affairs officer at Southern Company Gas in Atlanta. He was president of the Alabama Power Foundation and vice president of Public Relations and Charitable Giving for Alabama Power when FPJ purchased The Birmingham Times. Brian Hamilton is another FPJ board member. He runs A.G. Gaston Construction Company, which is an Alabama Power Company networking partner. The other FPJ board members are Dr. George French, President of Miles College, and Samuel Martin. Alabama Power Company and its political ally, Regions Bank, have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Miles College and its affiliate entities in recent years. After the change in ownership at The Birmingham Times, the newspaper hired a seasoned team of executives and reporters, improved its design, enhanced its online presence, and published a steady stream of “Happy News” for its targeted readership. “Happy News” features positive stories about community events and uplifting profiles of non-controversial people. “Happy News” does not include hard hitting, investigative reporting that: (a) exposes known polluters in Alabama, (b) spotlights public corruption within local, state or federal government, or (c) shows the need for transparency and accountability in government operations and campaign financing laws. Because The Birmingham Times has historically received about $75,000 a year in advertising money from the City of Birmingham, “Happy News” does not include criticism of the Woodfin administration (or his predecessors in office). Finally, “Happy News” does not include any kind of negative media coverage of Alabama Power Company, its networking business partners and political allies, and/or politicians supported by the Business Council of Alabama. The Birmingham Times’ coverage of Sherman Industries’ controversial concrete manufacturing plant relocation plan has been limited to a powder-puff article about Woodfin’s May 7, 2019 announcement that he opposes the plan. The newspaper has not written about the well-known air pollution hazards from a concrete batch plant operating in a residential neighborhood. Likewise, The Birmingham Times has not condemned Woodfin’s painfully obvious and unconscionable inaction in this matter. Like the band that played music to calm the passengers while the Titanic was sinking, The Birmingham Times is piping “Happy News” into the endangered Five Points West community as Sherman Industries prepares to sink the quality of life in their proud neighborhood. The Birmingham Times is joined in the art of seducing and sedating residents in the Five Points West community by The Birmingham News and AL.com, both of which have downplayed the premature death and disease that will likely occur among these residents in the event the concrete batch plant becomes operational in their neighborhood. Epilogue We are witnessing the death of a revitalized predominantly black Birmingham, Alabama community whose residents exercised their right under the 1965 Voting Rights Act to elect candidates of their choice during the 2017 municipal elections. Because campaign money has passed hands, the popular, 37-year-old, articulate, millennial mayor they elected will not use the full power of his office to advance their political interests and protect them from deadly air pollution. The black-owned newspaper that once supplied Birmingham’s black community with the critical information it needed to improve the quality of their lives is no longer black-owned. It is now owned by a non-profit entity that was funded by the biggest air polluter in Alabama – Alabama Power Company. As a result of this change in ownership, The Birmingham Times is NOT in a position to condemn Sherman Industries’ air pollution or its concrete plant relocation plan. Likewise, it cannot hold Mayor Woodfin accountable for his failure to kill the relocation plan. If they are to be saved from the tragic fate that awaits them, the residents of the Five Points West community must save themselves. Except for District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt's early protest against the relocation plan, their elected city officials have abandoned them. Mayor Randall Woodfin took the proverbial “thirty pieces of silver” from Alabama Power Company and its political allies. He cannot give this money back. Unless the 39,340 residents in the Five Points West community can find a modern-day “David” who is willing to slay the “Goliath” known as Sherman Industries, they will suffer air pollution and related diseases and death for decades to come. PHOTO: Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin will not fight to keep Sherman Industries from locating a dangerous concrete manufacturing plant in the revitalized Five Points West community. He has surrendered this proud community to a known air polluter without firing a shot from his mighty arsenal of mayoral weapons. This proverbial "David" will not slay the "Goliath" known as Sherman Industries.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 16, 2019 Very few things in life shock me. The complicity of a millennial black mayor and predominantly black council in Alabama's largest city in the controversial relocation of a Sherman Industries concrete manufacturing plant that spews particle pollution in the air every day that will slowly cause premature death and disease among the 39,340 mostly black residents in Birmingham’s Five Points West community has floored me. The power players in this “death and disease by air pollution” drama are hiding among us in plain sight. Nobody has ever connected the dots or exposed them -- until now. I am almost done sifting through the thousands of pages of documents that tell the true story of why the residents in the Five Points West community must suffer and die from a new wave of air pollution. Because the culprits in this saga are masters of deceit and have an endless ability to peddle false narratives to the black community, I am meticulously documenting this unprecedented betrayal of an entire black community in 2019 by city officials who were elected to advance and protect the political interests of these residents. This betrayal of trust occurred long before these city officials were sworn into office. And, it is rooted in the death and betrayal that occurred decades ago in a country that made the extermination of human beings a household word. The Sonderkommando in Nazi Germany In Nazi Germany, the Jewish men who led their fellow men, women, and children to the gas chambers in Adolf Hitler’s concentration camps were called the Sonderkommando. These men were also tasked with taking the Nazis’ victims from the gas chambers and disposing of the bodies. According to History.com, the work of the Sonderkommando was shrouded in mystery and often performed under the threat of death. The word Sonderkommando means “special unit” in German, and from the start, the men tasked with helping the Nazis lived lives that were very different from those of other prisoners in the concentration camps. Young prisoners -- all able-bodied men -- were selected for the Sonderkommando unit when they arrived at camp and were forced to serve without being given a briefing on what their tasks would be. Since the men were required to lift corpses, they were given better rations than other prisoners. They were also kept in isolation; most never interacted with other prisoners at the camp aside from other members of the unit and those who were about to be murdered. The duties of Sonderkommando varied, but all entailed helping the Nazis move along their extermination of Jews. The Nazis did the actual killing, dropping Zyklon B pellets into gas chambers, but the Sonderkommando were forced to do nearly everything else. They helped maintain order among prisoners who were about to be killed, lying and telling them that they needed to take showers before rejoining their families. They removed the naked bodies from the gas chamber, picked them over for gold teeth and hidden valuables, and cut their hair off to sell to German companies to be used for cloth, ammunition packaging and other purposes. They also sorted the clothing and personal effects the murder victims had left behind. They carried the bodies to the crematoria and stuffed them into the ovens. Then they ground the remaining bones and took the ashes to various dumping sites to hide the evidence. Today's Sonderkommando in Birmingham Today, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and the predominantly black city council are prepared to serve in a modern-day version of the Sonderkommando. They know that air pollution is the world's #1 environmental risk factor for premature death and disease, but they do not care enough about this adverse impact on the Five Points West community to stop it. In fact, this City Hall crowd is ready, willing, and able to surrender the residents in this community to certain death and disease from Sherman Industries’ steady flow of dangerous air pollution. I was not surprised about Sherman Industries's cavalier attitude towards the health, safety, and lives of the residents in the Five Points West community. After all, Sherman Industries is an affiliate of the HeidelbergCement Group, which was a known Nazi collaborator during World War II. I was very surprised at the willingness of Mayor Woodfin and the city council to serve as the Sonderkommando for Sherman Industries. Unlike the Sonderkommando in Nazi Germany, Mayor Woodfin’s and the city council's betrayal of the residents in Five Points West is not made under any threat of death to him or the council. Instead, this sellout is based entirely upon the exchange of money and influence peddling. It is unprecedented in scale and scope in the history of politics for the intended beneficiaries of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. All of the dots have been connected, and all of the players will be exposed in Sunday’s exclusive blockbuster investigative report. Stay tuned! PHOTO: Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin is serving in a modern-day Sonderkommando role for Sherman Industries. Coming Sunday, we will tell you why.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 14, 2019 On Monday night, Birmingham, Alabama mayor Randall Woodfin announced at a District 8 town hall meeting that he was powerless to stop a toxic concrete manufacturing plant from locating in the city's stable Five Points West community. From the moment Sherman Industries informed Woodfin’s Department of Planning, Engineering, and Permits on January 24, 2019 that it was relocating the plant from downtown to revitalized predominantly black community in West Birmingham, Mayor Woodfin never tried to stop this relocation plan. The relocation move was an accommodation to the predominantly white residents in the booming Railroad Park and Region Field areas in downtown Birmingham who know the dangers of the pollutants released from the concrete manufacturing plant and who do not want the plant in their neighborhood. The relocation plan was supported by Mayor Woodfin until late April. After Five Points West residents learned of the relocation plan in April, they protested against it. These protests are growing. During a May 7, 2019 city council meeting, Woodfin reversed course and announced his opposition to the plan for the first time. He then tossed this political “hot potato” to the city council and asked the council to kill the relocation plan by rezoning the Sherman Industries’ property in Five Points West. Woodfin, who is a lawyer and who worked in the city’s law department for several years, knew at the time that the city council could not lawfully enact an ex post facto change in the zoning for the property. During Monday night’s town hall meeting, Mayor Woodfin again repeated his earlier claim that only the city council could block the relocation plan. This is not true. Sadly, Mayor Woodfin has surrendered the public health, safety and lives of the Five Points West residents to the dangerous environmental pollution from Sherman Industries’ concrete manufacturing plant without any kind of fight. Woodfin never used the power of his office to kill Sherman Industries’ relocation plan when he had a chance to do so. Under the Mayor-Council Act, Woodfin, alone, has the power to enforce all laws and ordinances, including all local, state, and federal anti-pollution laws. This power is the first one listed in Section 4.06 (1) of the Act. The two most powerful mayors in Alabama history – Richard Arrington, Jr., and former Montgomery mayor Emory Folmar – routinely used this power to stop company operations that threatened public health, safety and welfare in their respective cities. From day-one, Sherman Industries knew that Randall Woodfin would not use this power for the benefit of Five Points West residents. The company already had his buy-in for the relocation plan. After Woodfin signed off on the plan in January, Sherman Industries quickly and quietly applied for an Air Permit from the Jefferson County Department of Health (JCDH) to operate its toxic concrete manufacturing facility in the Five Points West community. A hearing on the permit application is scheduled for June 6, 2019. Sherman Industries is confident that its concrete plant will receive a JCDH air permit and will operate in Five Points West, as planned. Its parent company, the HeidelbergCement Group, has plenty of experience in permitting concrete manufacturing facilities for commercial operations. The company has run over weak and timid mayors like Randall Woodfin countless times in the course of permitting its concrete plants in 3,000 locations worldwide. Furthermore, Sherman Industries has already agreed to sell its downtown site for $3,375,000 to a Colorado-based mix-use property developer named Residential Ventures. Sherman Industries is confident that it has a “lock” on the JCDH air permit application process. The HeidelbergCement Group has all of the technical documentation Sherman Industries needs to secure approval for the company’s state and federal environmental permits. The HeidelbergCement Group also knows that the Woodfin administration lacks the political backbone to withhold the issuance of the necessary construction and operating permits for the relocated concrete manufacturing facility, which he has the power to do under Section 4.06 (1) of the Mayor-Council Act. After all, Woodfin has never fought any major business community member on any issue. Additionally, the HeidelbergCement Group knows that any attempt by the city council to rezone its Five Points West property at this time would be an exercise in futility. Such council action, if it occurs, would likely be struck down in court as an unconstitutional ex post facto law. Unlike Mayor Woodfin, the HeidelbergCement Group has shown throughout history that it will do whatever it takes to win. This company demonstrated its commitment to Adolf Hitler when it collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. The blood of six million Black Germans, Jews, Gypsies, and Gay victims who were exterminated during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany is still on the hands of the HeidelbergCement Group. The company continues to demonstrate its disregard for innocent human life today by neutering Mayor Woodfin and ramming Sherman Industries’ Birmingham concrete manufacturing plant down their throats of concerned Five Points West residents. It appears, at this juncture, that the fate of Five Points West residents is sealed. Mayor Woodfin has surrendered the health, safety, and lives of these residents to Sherman Industries/the HeidelbergCement Group without a fight. The city council (as a whole) will not fight for them, either. The mayor and council will continue to issue “feel good” press releases that announce their opposition to the plant location in Five Points West. However, these press releases are designed to appease the affected residents and nothing more. Finally, money has already changed hands. The Five Points West community has been sold out. It appears that the proverbial “thirty pieces of silver” was enough for Mayor Randall Woodfin to surrender this revitalized residential community to Sherman Industries’ pollution machine without any kind of fight. This is the new definition of “progressive” leadership in Birmingham. PHOTO: Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randal Woodfin sold out Five Points West residents to concrete manufacturing environmental polluter Sherman Industries without a fight. Was this a slick political move or an act of betrayal for the proverbial "thirty pieces of silver"?

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 11, 2019 In 2014, nearly 100,000 residents of Flint, Michigan were exposed to dangerous levels of lead poisoning in the water they drank and used for cooking, showering, cleaning, and bathing. The water contamination caused Coliform bacteria, THMs, lead, and a Legionnaires disease outbreak. An estimated 6,000 to 12,000 children were exposed to lead poisoning. The State of Michigan declared a public health state of emergency in Flint. Twelve people died from Legionnaires’ disease. The public health crisis from this tragic event is ongoing. Flint residents did not know that they were being exposed to lead poisoning in their water supply. The State of Michigan, headed by former Republican Governor Rick Snyder, was responsible for supplying water to this mostly black city. Early warning signs of lead poisoning in the water supply were quickly dismissed by Gov. Snyder and his political cronies as the pesky babbling of local community organizers in Flint and outside troublemakers. State and federal environmental protection agencies are still trying to clean up the environmental disaster Gov. Snyder created in Flint. The Next Victims -- Five Points West Residents in Birmingham, Alabama According to the most recent demographic profile published by Weichert Realtors, the Five Points West Community in Birmingham, Alabama has a population of 39,340 people living in 14,772 households. Forty-one percent of these households have children living in them. Fifty-one percent of the residents in this community own their homes. Eighty-four percent of the adults in this community graduated from high school and/or college. The median income in this community is $35,498. During the Jim Crow era, Birmingham’s all-white government accommodated white corporate property owners that needed zoning for hazardous waste and commercial-scale industrial operations. Their zoning requests were routinely granted for properties located in the Five Points West community (and other black residential neighborhoods). At the time, there was nothing black residents could do to protect themselves or their properties from the devastating effects of environmental racism. When Dr. Ricard Arrington, Jr. became Birmingham’s first black mayor in 1979, the city embarked upon a long and focused journey to improve the Five Points West community and other neglected black neighborhoods in Birmingham. Arrington, together with mayors Bernard Kincaid, Larry Langford, and William Bell, invested huge amounts of time, human resources, and money to revitalize the Five Points West community. For example, they developed a $55 million CrossPlex facility in the community. They encouraged Starbucks to build a training facility in the area. They got the Boys and Girls Club to locate its building in the community. A new hotel recently opened in the Five Points West area. The City upgraded the infrastructure connecting Five Points West to the developing Ensley community. An entertainment center and amphitheater are also planned for the community. These four mayors took pride in purging the industrial polluters from the Five Points West community and replacing them with safe, clean, socially responsible businesses. A Resurgence of Environmental Racism On January 24, 2019, Birmingham city officials learned that Sherman Industries, an affiliate of the HeidelbergCement Group (in Heidelberg, Germany), planned to relocate its downtown concrete manufacturing plant to property the company has owned in the Five Points West community since the 1930s. This move is intended to accommodate the predominantly white residents in the booming Railroad Park and Region Field areas in downtown Birmingham who want to avoid the dangerous pollutants released from the plant. The relocation plan was quietly supported by Mayor Randall Woodfin and his Department of Planning, Engineering, and Permits for more than four months after its introduction on January 24th. After neighborhood residents learned of the relocation plan in April, they immediately protested against it. These protests are growing daily. In recent weeks, the relocation plan has turned into a political ”hot potato” for Mayor Woodfin. During the May 7, 2019 city council meeting, Woodfin reversed course and announced his opposition to the relocation plan. He then tossed this “hot potato” to the city council and asked that body to kill the relocation plan by rezoning the Sherman Industries’ property in Five Points West. Woodfin, who is a lawyer and who worked in the city’s law department for several years before becoming mayor, knew at the time that the city council could not lawfully enact an ex post facto change in the zoning for the property. However, this PR gesture, gave Woodfin political cover for the unpleasant things that are sure to come. According to a May 7, 2019 Facebook post by Michael Hansen, executive director of Gasp (the Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution): “The primary concern for concrete batch plants is fugitive dust — particles of cement, pozzolan, aggregate and sand — is the primary pollutant of concern. Particle pollution is a dangerous and common air pollutant composed of tiny bits of solids, liquids, and gases that can be small enough to penetrate the lungs and even get into your bloodstream. The fugitive dust can come from operations of the plant, but also from trucking raw materials in and finished products out. In other words, there is definitely reason for residents to worry about their health and well-being. Birmingham overall ranked 14th for year-round particle pollution in this year's State of the Air Report. That isn't good! Adding more fugitive dust pollution near the Crossplex is just a bad idea all around.” Hansen provides additional information about this matter on GASP’s website in a May 10, 2019 article titled, “What’s Up with that Sherman Concrete Plant.” Doomed by a Catastrophic Failure of Leadership Mayor Woodfin did not use the power of his office to kill Sherman Industries’ relocation plan when he had a chance to do so. Under the Mayor-Council Act, Woodfin, alone, has the power to enforce all laws and ordinances. This power is the first one listed in Section 4.06 of the Act. The two most powerful mayors in Alabama history – Richard Arrington, Jr., and former Montgomery mayor Emory Folmar – routinely used this power to stop company operations that threatened the public health, safety and welfare in their respective cities. Sherman Industries knows that Randall Woodfin will not use this power for the benefit of Five Points West residents. After Woodfin signed off on Sherman Industries’ relocation plan in January, the company quickly and quietly applied for an air permit from the Jefferson County Department of Health (JCDH) to operate its toxic concrete manufacturing facility in the Five Points West community. This is the same agency that has issued air permits for well-known polluters in the North Birmingham area of the city. As expected, Sherman Industries did not engage the Five Points West community or District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt (who represents the residents of that area). Instead, Sherman Industries got the JCDH to post the company’s application for an air permit on the JCDH website on April 14, 2019, along with an abbreviated public comment period which ended on April 30, 2019. A hearing on the permit application has been scheduled for June 6, 2019. Sherman Industries is confident that its concrete plant will (a) receive JCDH approval for an air permit and (b) operate in the Five Points West community, as planned. Its parent company, the HeidelbergCement Group, has plenty of experience in permitting concrete manufacturing facilities for commercial operations. The company has run over timid mayors like Randall Woodfin countless times in the course of permitting its concrete plants in 3,000 locations worldwide. The objective evidence in this case suggests that the residents of Five Points West are doomed. Sherman Industries has already agreed to sell its downtown site for $3,375,000 to a Colorado-based mix-use property developer named Residential Ventures. Sherman Industries believes it has a “lock” on the JCDH air permit application process. The HeidelbergCement Group has all of the technical documentation that Sherman Industries needs to secure approval for the company’s state and federal environmental permits (especially in the era of President Donald Trump’s deregulation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Governor Kay Ivey’s “benign neglect” of the Alabama’s black community). The HeidelbergCement Group also knows that the Woodfin administration lacks the political backbone to withhold the issuance of the necessary construction and operating permits for the relocated concrete manufacturing facility, which he has the power to do under Section 4.06 (1) of the Mayor-Council Act. After all, Woodfin has never used this power to fight any major business on any issue. Finally, the HeidelbergCement Group knows that any attempt by the city council to rezone its Five Points West property at this time will likely be struck down in court as an unconstitutional ex post facto law. Unlike Birmingham’s weak and submissive city officials, the HeidelbergCement Group has shown throughout history that it will do whatever it takes to win. The company demonstrated this commitment to Adolf Hitler when it collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. The blood of six million Black Germans, Jews, Gypsies, and Gay victims who were exterminated during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany is still on the hands of the HeidelbergCement Group. Today, the company is demonstrating its disregard for innocent human life by ramming Sherman Industries’ Birmingham concrete manufacturing plant down the throats of concerned Five Points West residents. Epilogue It appears that the fate of Five Points West residents is sealed. Mayor Woodfin will not use the power of his office to fight Sherman Industries/the HeidelbergCement Group for their benefit. The city council will not fight for these residents, either. Instead, the mayor and council will issue “feel good” statements of support that are designed to appease the affected community, but that’s about all they will do. Ironically, District 3 Councilor Valerie Abbott is the city council president. Her concern in this matter is superficial, at best. After all, Abbott views the mere presence of innocent young black children who wanted to attend a proposed Major League Baseball-sponsored Youth Baseball Academy in the 100-acre George Ward public park as a “toxic” condition that threaten the safety and security of the adjacent, predominantly white, Glen Iris residential neighborhood. This kind of perceived “pollution” caused her to kill the Youth Baseball Academy project. Unlike the unsuspecting residents of Flint, Michigan who did not know they were being poisoned and harmed by the lead in the city’s water supply, Birmingham officials know right now that 39,340 vulnerable, innocent residents in the Five Points West community might be exposed to dangerous pollutants from Sherman Industries’ concrete manufacturing plant. Yet, these officials do not have the political will, personal courage, or determination to stop it. Furthermore, money has already changed hands. The Five Points West community has been sold out. We are witnessing the ultimate act of betrayal -- the needless death of a viable residential community from avoidable environmental pollution. The only unsolved mystery left at this juncture is whether Mayor Randall Woodfin, or the city council (as a whole), will bear the political blame and fallout from knowingly allowing a toxic concrete manufacturing plant to poison up to 39,340 residents in the Five Points West community without waging one hell of a “do or die” fight for these deserving constituents. From what I have seen to date, these elected city officials are “bought and paid for” political puppets, not committed environmental protection fighters. Just ask Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Pine Street Strategies. They are in the best position to know. PHOTO: Sherman Industries' downtown concrete manufacturing plant.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 10, 2019 On October 3, 2017, Randall Woodfin soundly defeated incumbent William Bell in the race for mayor of Birmingham, Alabama. On November 28, 2017, Woodfin was sworn in as Birmingham’s 30th mayor. Shortly after assuming office, Mayor Woodfin awarded Washington, D.C. based lobbying firm named Pine Street Strategies a lucrative contract to represent the City of Birmingham, Alabama on Capitol Hill in Washington. The contract is ongoing. According to the firm’s registration form in the U.S. House and Senate, Pine Street began representing the City of Birmingham on March 21, 2018. The firm’s quarterly disclosure reports since March 21, 2018 state that Pine Street has engaged in lobbying activities for the City on issues involving: (a) environmental protection/SuperFund, (b) municipal transportation, (c) economic development, (d) municipal taxes, (e) federal banking regulations, and (f) municipal housing. Pine Street's chief executive officer (Donald Calloway, Jr.) and chief operating officer (Jarrod Loadholt) are listed in the disclosure reports as its designated "lobbyists" for the purpose of lobbying members of Congress. Calvin Harris, whose name is not listed in the disclosure reports, serves as Pine Street’s Senior Vice President for Communications and Messaging. Harris, Loadholt, and Woodfin are Morehouse College alumni and personal friends. Pine Street takes full credit for helping Randall Woodfin defeat Bell. The City’s lobbying contract is the firm’s reward for this political achievement. Today, the City of Birmingham is prominently listed on Pine Street’s website as one of the firm’s six anchor clients. Also listed is the prestigious Environmental Defense Fund, whose board of trustees and executive officers are among the global leaders in the clean air policies and initiatives. City records show that Pine Street has been paid a total of $270,000 since the firm began lobbying for the city. Yet, the firm’s disclosure forms in Washington report payments of only $170,000 for these services. While the records do not identify what lobbying services Pine Street provided for the other $100,000 the City has paid the firm, I have confirmed that Pine Street arranges out-of-state fundraisers for a Political Action Committee (PAC) Woodfin launched in May 2018 called “Next Generation Alabama.” The PAC was formed to “elect the next generation of progressive Democratic leadership in Alabama.” Woodfin attended “Next Generation Alabama” fundraisers this year on January 12th in Memphis and March 29th in New Orleans. Pine Street’s professional services fee for arranging these fundraisers was not paid from the PAC's monies and was not listed as a “gift” to the PAC or an “in-kind” contribution. Pine Street, which was founded in 2016, reported $420,000 in total lobbying income in 2018 from all clients. This money includes $160,000 from Anheuser-Busch InBev, $110,000 from the City of Birmingham (even though separate disclosure form completed by the firm reported $140,000 from the City for 2018), $30,000 from the Environmental Defense Fund, and $120,000 from the National Bankers Association. The Birmingham city council has authorized Mayor Woodfin to spent up to $600,000 on Pine Street Strategies for legislative lobbying services. However, a review of the minutes of city council meetings and council committee meetings since March 21, 2018 does not show where Pine Street has provided the City with deliverables for the $270,000 in payments Birmingham has made to date under the contract. Pine Street is not Registered as a Lobbying Firm in Alabama Pine Street is not registered as a lobbying firm in Alabama even though the firm has engaged in lobbying activities on behalf of the City of Birmingham relating to recent environmental matters. These activities have been performed primarily by Mr. Iva Williams, III, Pine Street’s paid Birmingham subcontractor. Pine Street has not disclosed the amount of city money Mr. Williams has been paid for his lobbying services in Birmingham. Likewise, Pine Street has not disclosed the amount of payments to the firm's other subcontractors and agents in Birmingham. Mr. Iva Williams appears to be Pine Street Strategies’ corporate face and brand in Birmingham. He lives and works in the city as a community organizer. Mr. Williams prominently displays photos and messages on social media that highlight his close personal and professional relationship with Mayor Woodfin and other city officials. Mr. Williams is best known locally for his 2013 public confession that he suffered from severe depression and considered suicide. He was also arrested in 2015 on assault and battery charges stemming from a physical confrontation involving his former wife. Mr. Williams’ last known arrest occurred on August 3, 2017 on contempt charges which landed him in the Jefferson County jail. The mugshot of Mr. Williams’ 2017 arrest appears below. Like Pine Street, Mr. Williams is not registered as a lobbyist with the Alabama Ethics Commission, either in his own name or as a subcontractor/agent for Pine Street. Yet, Mr. Williams has actively assisted Pine Street with rendering lobbying services relating to (a) environmental concerns over Sherman Industries’ concrete manufacturing plant and (b) purported rezoning options available to the city council for the potential plant site in the Five Points West community. Mr. Williams' recent articles and posts on his public Facebook page also confirm his lobbying activities on behalf of Pine Street and the City of Birmingham. Additionally, they show when and where Mr. Williams wrote correspondence to city officials with the specific intent of influencing their official position on matters that may requiring their vote. Williams Showcases his Close Bond with Mayor Randall Woodfin Mr. Iva Williams often showcases his business relationship with Pine Street Strategies and his strong personal relationship with Mayor Randall Woodfin. While representing Pine Street Strategies, Mr. Williams dabbles in legislative and regulatory affairs, corporate public affairs consultation, targeted communications, and messaging on environmental matters for Mayor Woodfin and the City of Birmingham. The repetitive nature of his lobbying work suggests that Mr. Williams acted within the line and scope of his authority with Pine Street Strategies whenever he engaged in messaging activities that were designed to shape City Hall’s narrative on Sherman Industries’ controversial plan to relocate its downtown concrete manufacturing plant to a stable black neighborhood in the Five Points West community. The relocation plan, which was supported by Mayor Woodfin and his staff for four months after it was first unveiled on January 24, 2019, has come under increasing attack in recent weeks from residents in the Five Points West community. The plan is now a political “hot potato” that Woodfin is trying to toss to the city council. On Tuesday, Woodfin reconsidered his original position on supporting the plant relocation plan, reversed course, and publicly opposed the plan for the first time. This political sea change mirrors the advice and messaging Mr. Williams posted on his Facebook page. On May 9, 2019, I revealed that Sherman Industries is an affiliate of the German-based HeidelbergCement Group, the world’s largest concrete manufacturer. The HeidelbergCement Group, which operates 3,000 plants in 60 countries, collaborated with Adolf Hitler during his reign of terror in Nazi German. Hitler’s Holocaust killed an estimated six million Black German, Jews, Gypsies, and Gay people during World War II. Instead of exploring the ramifications of the HeidelbergCement Group’s role in Hitler’s genocide and forced sterilization programs in Nazi Germany and other salient factors that bear on the Sherman Industries controversy, Pine Street Strategies unleashed Iva Williams to attack me because of my special series of investigative news articles and commentaries on Sherman Industries’ controversial relocation plan. My investigation into Pine Street Strategies' lobbying work and the City's payments to the firm will continue. At some point, the city council and public must find out (a) what Birmingham is receiving for the tax dollars it has paid to Pine Street Strategies and (b) who has shared in these payments. Stay tuned. PHOTO: Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin (left) checking in with Pine Street Strategies subcontractor/agent, Iva Williams (right) on November 19, 2018 at Williams' Birmingham home. Birmingham taxpayers did not know they were paying Mr. Williams for local lobbying services when Mayor Woodfin paid Pine Street Strategies for lobbying services in Washington. Mr. Williams was an unregistered lobbyist when he received the money. PHOTO: Jefferson County, Alabama Jail Mugshot of Iva Williams, dated August 3, 2017.

Breaking News--- By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 7, 2019 Four months after learning about Sherman Industries plan to relocate its toxic concrete manufacturing facility from downtown to a stable black residential neighborhood in the Five Points West community, Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin finally yielded to mounting community pressure and joined Five Points West residents in opposing the relocation plan. In January 2019, Sherman Industries cut a deal with Mayor Woodfin to relocate the concrete manufacturing facility on a site the company owned in the Five Points West community. White residents in the booming downtown areas around Railroad Park and Regions Field wanted the toxic facility moved to another location. Sherman Industries and Mayor Woodfin dutifully accommodated them. Sherman Industris chose the Five Points West site and told the Woodfin administration about it. Together, Sherman Industries and Woodfin proceeded to breathe life into this relocation plan. On May 1, 2019, Mayor Woodfin admitted on video that he had full knowledge of Sherman Industries’ relocation plan for several months. Yet, his office did nothing to stop it. A timeline of key events on Woodfin’s “Putting People First” mayoral letterhead shows that the Mayor’s office was first approached about the Five Points West site on January 24, 2019. Consultants for Sherman Industries introduced this site to Woodfin’s Planning, Engineering, and Permitting Department (PEP) at that time. An unaltered copy of this timeline appears in the photo accompanying this article. Sherman Industries did not engaged the Five Points West community or District 8 councilor Steven Hoyt regarding its relocation plan. Instead, Sherman Industries got the Jefferson County Department of Health (JCDH) to post the company’s application for an Air Permit on the JCDH website on April 14, 2019, along with an abbreviated public comment period which ended on April 30, 2019. This morning, Mayor Woodfin announced in city council meeting that he opposes the location plan. After learning about the proposal in January, Woodfin could have used any one of a dozen powers reserved to him under the city’s Mayor-Council Act to single-handedly kill the plan. Instead, Woodfin punted the ball and asked the city council to kill the relocation plan by rezoning the property. Without specifying names, Woodfin blasted those in the media who exposed Sherman Industries’ very clever, Woodfin sanctioned, Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack on the Five Points West community. He claimed that individuals like me and other journalists who exposed the controversial relocation plan were trying to divide the community and city. In 2015, the City of Nashville experienced an identical situation involving Nashville Ready Mix. The company withdrew its plans to relocate a concrete batch plant to another site the company owned in northeast Nashville after neighborhood residents protested the planned relocation of the toxic plant and city planners recommended that the Metro Planning Commission disapprove construction. Woodfin's city planners did not recommend that he kill the plan in January because they knew he supported it. They went along with the plan together along with Woodfin. This Morning, Woodfin did not explain why his office failed to follow the example set by Nashville until District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt and former SCLC (Gadsden Chapter) president Joseph Cole "blew the whistle" on Woodfin's collaboration with Sherman Industries in this toxic relocation plan. It remains to be seen whether Mayor Randall Woodfin will back up today's political rhetoric with firm, decisive action that kills this relocation plan. His cozy relationship with Sherman Industries and its paid consultants leaves a lot to be desired and many questions that need to be answered. PHOTO: The timeline shown on Mayor Randall Woodfin’s “Putting People First” letterhead contradicts statements Woodfin made to the city council this morning. As he admitted on news video a week ago, Woodfin has known about Sherman Industries’ planned relocation of its downtown concrete manufacturing facility relocation to the Five Points West neighborhood since January 2019 and did absolutely nothing to kill it. PHOTO: Sherman Industries' toxic downtown concrete manufacturing facility.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 8, 2019 Sherman Industries has not withdrawn its application for an Air Permit from the Jefferson County Department of Health (JCDH) to operate its concrete manufacturing facility in a residential neighborhood in the Five Points West community. Why? The company feels betrayed by Mayor Randall Woodfin, who supported the plant relocation move early on. Sherman Industries presented its relocation plan to Woodfin’s office in January 2019. An internal memorandum released by Woodfin’s office shows that he voiced no objection to the plan when it was first introduced to the city on January 24, 2019. White residents in the booming downtown areas around Railroad Park and Regions Field wanted the toxic facility moved to another location. Sherman Industries and Mayor Woodfin dutifully accommodated them. They agreed to relocate the concrete plant in Five Points West on a site Sherman Industries already owned. Sherman Industries did not engage the Five Points West community or District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt regarding the relocation plan. Instead, Sherman Industries got JCDH to post the company’s application for an Air Permit on the agency's website on April 14, 2019, along with an abbreviated public comment period which ended on April 30, 2019. The collaboration between Sherman Industries and Mayor Woodfin was a classic case of a sneak attack upon an unsuspecting black residential neighborhood. Fortunately for the residents of the Five Points West community, the plan backfired after Steven Hoyt and Joseph Cole “blew the whistle” on this blatant act of environmental racism. Four months after cutting his deal with Sherman Industries to support the relocation plan, Mayor Woodfin finally yielded to mounting community pressure and joined Five Points West residents in opposing the relocation plan. Woodfin has never explained why his office failed to follow the example set by Nashville city officials in a similar case. In 2015, Nashville killed an identical relocation plan involving Nashville Ready Mix. The company withdrew its plans to relocate a concrete batch plant to another site the company owned in northeast Nashville after neighborhood residents protested the planned relocation of the toxic plant and city planners recommended that the Metro Planning Commission disapprove construction. Sherman Industries is pressing on with its relocation plan. In addition to feeling betrayed by Woodfin, the company believes it can win approval for an Air Permit and secure the necessary construction and operating permits from the city. Sherman Industries may be right because Woodfin’s opposition to the relocation plan is belated, weak, and insincere. It was a reaction to the protests of community residents, rather than a passionate commitment to defeat the relocation plan. Five Points West residents still have a long, hard fight on their hands. They cannot let their guards down. What is worse, these residents cannot rely upon Mayor Randall Woodfin as a solid ally. The clandestine campaign money has already changed hands. Stay tuned for more breaking news on this issue. PHOTO: Mayor Randal Woodfin put the commercial interests of Sherman Industries ahead of the health, safety, and lives of the residents in the Five Points West community. He cannot fight Sherman Industries because the clandestine campaign money has already changed hands.

An Exclusive Investigative Report By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 6, 2019 On October 3, 2017, Randall Woodfin won an impressive election night victory over incumbent Birmingham, Alabama mayor William Bell. Woodfin, who was 35-years-old at the time, became “Birmingham’s Next Generation Mayor.” It was an exciting time for the city. Basking in the warm glow of Woodfin’s celebration that night were the principals of a small but talented Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm called Pine Street Strategies. Pine Street specializes in legislative and regulatory affairs, corporate public affairs consultation, targeted communications, and effective candidate and issue campaigns. Pine Street CEO Donald Calloway, Jr., who supported Woodfin’s mayoral candidacy from the beginning, gave credit for Woodfin’s victory to campaign manager Ed Fields, Calvin Harris, a Pine Street’s Senior Vice President for Communications and Messaging, and a host of other Woodfin campaign team members. Woodfin and Harris are Morehouse College graduates and close friends. Calloway gave a special shoutout to Iva Williams, III. “Nobody compares to Iva Williams. Nobody,” said Calloway. He was right in his description of Iva Williams, III, who serves as Vice-President of the Birmingham-based Outcast Voter League. Williams is best known locally for a 2013 public confession that he suffered from severe depression and considered suicide. He has had multiple run-ins with the law in recent years. In June 2017, Williams filed an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to disqualify mayoral candidate Chris Woods, who also opposed William Bell. Locally, Williams is known as a “political hustler” and “loose cannon” who will say and do just about anything for money. After the 2017 mayoral election, Mayor Woodfin awarded Pine Street a lucrative professional services contract that pays the firm a staggering monthly retainer. The City of Birmingham is prominently listed on Pine Street’s website as one of the firm’s anchor clients. Also listed is the prestigious Environmental Defense Fund, whose board of trustees and executive officers are among the global leaders in clean air policies and initiatives. Pine Street has two primary roles in the Randall Woodfin administration: (a) influencing the mayor’s public policy agenda through targeted messaging and (b) raising campaign money for Woodfin-controlled political action committees. Both roles benefit Woodfin in his capacity as a future political candidate, but not the City of Birmingham. Yet, Birmingham taxpayers are footing the bill for these ongoing and expensive professional services. According to Pine Street’s website: “We help your organization tell the right story to the right audience, at the right time." Pine Street then brags that the firm “utilizes our relationships with the press in various media outlets across the country to get your message to the people who need to hear it.” The Birmingham News and AL.com are two such media outlets. Neither Pine Street Strategies, nor the Outcast Voters League, nor Iva Williams is registered as a lobbyist with the Alabama Ethics Commission to perform any kind of lobbying services in the state on behalf of the City of Birmingham or its mayor. Yet, Iva Williams functions as a Pine Street Strategies paid subcontractor who regularly engages in messaging activities that are designed to influence public policy on matters of significant political interest to the Woodfin administration. Sneaking the Sherman Industries Concrete Facility Relocation Plan through the Environmental Permitting Process. In January 2019, Sherman Industries cut a deal with Mayor Woodfin to sneak the company’s planned relocation of its downtown concrete manufacturing facility into a stable black neighborhood in the Five Points West community without providing adequate notice of the plan to the residents who live in this community. Instead of vigorously opposing the controversial relocation plan, Woodfin blessed it. When white residents in the booming downtown areas around Railroad Park and Regions Field wanted the toxic concrete manufacturing facility moved to another location, Sherman Industries and Mayor Woodfin dutifully obliged them. On May 1, 2019, Mayor Woodfin admitted on video that he has been fully aware of Sherman Industries’ relocation plan for the past several months. Yet, his office did nothing to stop it. A timeline of key events on Woodfin’s “Putting People First” mayoral letterhead shows that the Mayor’s office was first approached about the Five Points West site on January 24, 2019. Consultants for Sherman Industries introduced this potential site to Woodfin’s Planning, Engineering, and Permitting Department (PEP) at that time. Sherman Industries had not engaged the Five Points West community nor District 8 councilor Steven Hoyt regarding the company's relocation plan. Instead, Sherman Industries got the Jefferson County Department of Health (JCDH) to post the company’s application for an Air Permit on the JCDH website on April 14, 2019, along with an abbreviated public comment period which ended on April 30, 2019. Rather than condemning this sneak attack on the Five Points West community, Mayor Woodfin continued to aid and abet Sherman Industries’ planned relocation. On May 1, 2019, Mr. Joseph Cole, a former student government president at Alabama State University and former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Gadsden, Alabama Chapter), brought this matter to my direct attention. During his SCLC presidency, Cole's organization desegregated every city department in Gadsden. He is an expert in mayoral powers under Alabama's municipal government laws. Neither one of us backed any mayoral candidate in the 2017 Birmingham city elections. Based upon my intimate knowledge of Birmingham’s Mayor-Council Act, I knew something was terribly wrong with this relocation plan. This deal smelled like a dead rat. Mayor Woodfin’s PEP had the power to kill this plan on the spot, but they did not do so. In 2015, Nashville had an identical situation involving Nashville Ready Mix. The company withdrew its plans to relocate a concrete batch plant to another site the company owned in northeast Nashville after neighborhood residents protested the planned relocation of the toxic plant and city planners recommended that the Metro Planning Commission disapprove construction. Unleashing an Unregistered Lobbyist After I investigated Mayor Woodfin’s cozy relationship with Sherman Industries and started publishing a series of articles about Councilor Steven Hoyt’s courageous efforts to stop this egregious act of environmental racism, unregistered lobbyist Iva Williams, III leaped into action. As directed by his bosses, Williams started an intense lobbying campaign on Mayor Woodfin’s behalf. As part of this campaign, Williams falsely accused me of framing Woodfin. Williams’ all-out social media assault was designed to influence Steven Hoyt and other city officials who have portfolio responsibility for approving or killing the Sherman Industries concrete manufacturing facility relocation plan. On May 5, 2019, Williams posted a message on his Facebook page that said: “Donald V. Watkins is a brilliant man... so brilliant that y'all constantly forget he's a pathological bald-faced @$$ liar. Negro go to jail! FOH!” Later that day, Williams directly lobbied District 8 Councilor Hoyt with the following letter that was designed to influence Hoyt’s and District 4 Councilor William Parker’s official actions in this matter. The letter stated: “Dear Councilman Steven Hoyt: Remember, Richard Arrington lost $700k and that was after almost going to jail because of him being in city hall years before. William Bell lost a mayoral election as sitting interim mayor (after raising $1M) because of his relationship with him. Bernard Kincaid lost his mayor's seat because of his relationship with him. William Parker lost his state legislative seat because of him. TWO (2) Alabama State University presidents have lost their jobs because of their relationships with him. A dozen celebrities and wealthy individuals lost millions because of him. HE LIED ON CONDOLEEZA RICE! IJS... don't associate with trash sir. Mess with Donald V. Watkins and it'll come back to bite you!” Park Board president Montal Morton gratuitously supported Iva Williams in this unregistered lobbying activity by “Liking” this letter on Williams’ Facebook page. Morton's action was designed to give the appearance of legitimacy to Williams' lobbying campaign. In furtherance of his lobbying campaign on behalf of Mayor Woodfin and Pine Street, Iva Williams began shaping the Woodfin administration’s public narrative on this highly controversial environmental justice matter through a series of Facebook statements to inquiring parties. Williams’ published statements even disseminated information on behalf of Mayor Woodfin about Sherman Industries’ property ownership, relocation plan, and interaction with other Birmingham neighborhoods. Epilogue Sadly, Randall Woodfin has become the first black mayor in American history to openly, willingly, and knowingly embrace an unmitigated act of environmental racism. Woodfin made an unwise choice to side with Sherman Industries and he appears to be stuck with it. No amount of PR spin or Internet bashing by Iva Williams can sanitize Woodfin’s bazaar sellout of the Five Points West community to an industrial-scale polluter. Pine Street Strategies now enjoys the unique distinction of representing a world-class environmental organization at the same time it is helping Mayor Woodfin (via the unregistered lobbying actions of Iva Williams, III) in his efforts to escort a known air, ground, and water polluter into a stable black residential neighborhood that is resisting a toxic concrete manufacturing facility. It will be interesting to see how Pine Street Strategies explains the firm’s double life to the Environmental Defense Fund. PHOTO: Pine Street Strategies Principals Donald Calloway (far left) and Calvin Harris (second from the left) dropped in to see Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin (second from the right) on April 1, 2019. Calloway, who is Pine Street's CEO, has praised the work of unregistered lobbyist, Iva Williams, III, for Mayor Woodfin's campaign.

Exclusive Investigative Report By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 4, 2019 I watched the May 1, 2019 video of Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin admitting his full knowledge of Sherman Industries’ controversial plan to relocate its downtown concrete manufacturing facility to a stable black residential neighborhood in the Five Points West community. Instead of discouraging and/or stopping this relocation initiative when he first learned about it, Woodfin blessed it. At that moment, Randall Woodfin became the first black mayor in American history to openly, willingly, and knowingly embrace an unmitigated act of environmental racism. By supporting Sherman Industries’ relocation plan, Woodfin actually breathed new life into City Engineer A.J. Hawkins’ 1933 city map that depicted black neighborhoods as less desirable than those areas that were zoned for hazardous waste. Because blacks were viewed as sub-human in 1933, Birmingham city officials forced them to live in residential neighborhoods that were located between lands that were used to dump commercial volumes of hazardous waste and those that were zoned for heavy commercial and industrial use. Mayor Woodfin's executive actions in this matter are perpetuating the vestiges of Birmingham's long and ugly history of racial discrimination against blacks. Today, it is well-documented that concrete manufacturing facilities release toxins into the air, ground, and water that can be extremely dangerous to the health, safety and lives of humans in the surrounding communities. Steven Hoyt "Blew the Whistle" on Woodfin’s Embrace of Environmental Racism Last month, Birmingham City Councilor Steven Hoyt, a three-term council member who represents District 8, exposed Randall Woodfin’s embrace of the environmental racism in Sherman Industries’ relocation plan. On April 26, 2019, Hoyt wrote Woodfin a letter that described this racism and protested the relocation plan. Hoyt noted that Sherman Industries was asked to relocate its toxic concrete manufacturing facility from downtown in an effort to reduce the impact of the toxins released from the manufacturing process on residents in and around Railroad Park and Regions Field. These residents are predominantly white. Woodfin privately agreed that residents in the Railroad Park and Regions Field areas should not be exposed to the toxins coming from the concrete manufacturing facility. However, Woodfin supported Sherman Industries’ plan to relocate the facility to Five Points West because the new site was already zoned for heavy industrial use. This is where Woodfin’s executive decision was wrong, dangerous, unconscionable, and a complete sellout of the residents in the Five Points community. The concrete facility would be located directly across the street from a daycare center that provides care for 35 to 40 neighborhood children. The facility would be located next to the Regions Bank building and one of the City’s major investments at the CrossPlex. Last Tuesday, the city council voted unanimously to oppose this relocation program. Despite this unified vote, Woodfin still supports the relocation plan. To get the political heat off of himself, Woodfin has deflected responsibility for the ultimate decision on whether the facility will be allowed to operate on the new site to a Jefferson County environmental permitting authority controlled by Sherman Industries and other known polluters. This was a slick PR trick and cowardly political move on Woodfin's part. Randall Woodfin is Compromised Sherman Industries would never try to relocate a toxic concrete facility to a City of Mountain Brook, City of Hoover, or City of Homewood residential neighborhood. The mayors of those cities would never allow it.  Yet, Mayor Randall Woodfin signed off on this relocation plan. Why? Birmingham's business community has privately profiled Randall Woodfin as “lazy,” “inept,” “weak,” “scared of confrontation,” and a man who has no "balls." The key business leaders within this group often brag in private dinner parties that “Mayor Woodfin is our man.” These are their words, not mine. They simply do not respect Randall Woodfin. In their view, Woodfin is nothing more than a “pack mule” who carries their political baggage and special corporate interests. He is reliable, dependable, loyal to the business community only, and dutifully subservient to their wishes. Woodfin has proven to the business community that he will betray his constituents. The business community’s chokehold on Mayor Woodfin is further evidenced by the horrible deal he cut for the UAB stadium project. In 2018, Woodfin agreed to provide $90 million of the $174 million in funding for a new 55,000 seat open air stadium for University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) football. Even though the City of Birmingham is providing the largest amount of money for the project, it does not control the hundreds of contracting and subcontracting opportunities related to the construction of the stadium or the plethora of ongoing revenue streams from stadium operations. Furthermore, the City did not demand that businesses headquartered in Birmingham have first preference on contracting opportunities related to the project. The other financing partners in the stadium project have total control and dominion over the expenditure of project financing monies and the economic empowerment opportunities derived from stadium operations. Instead of controlling every aspect of the stadium project, Mayor Woodfin and other Birmingham city officials are just happy to have access to free seats, hot dogs, and drinks in one of the luxury skyboxes during the UAB games. Now, one of the big corporations in Birmingham believes it can relocate a toxic facility to a black residential neighborhood because the city’s business community has "bought and paid for" Mayor Randall Woodfin. This company might be right. As expected, Woodfin is doing absolutely nothing to fight Sherman Industries' relocation plan. In Birmingham, Kids in a Baseball Academy are “Toxic” but Polluters are Not In March 2019, Birmingham Council President Valerie Abbott teamed with Mayor Randall Woodfin (her silent partner) to kill a proposal by Major League Baseball (MLB) to construct a $10 million Youth Baseball Academy and four full-size baseball fields at George Ward Park because Abbott’s Glen Iris neighborhood residents thought the MLB sports complex would attract too many blacks to the Park. Glen Iris residents viewed the increased presence of blacks in the area as a "toxic" condition. To most right-thinking Americans, there is nothing "toxic" about young kids learning how to play baseball at a 100-acre public park. Yet, Abbott and Woodfin quietly killed the MLB project even though the city council voted 8-1 to support it. Once their discreet MLB-related collaboration was exposed, Woodfin’s inconspicuous embrace of this form of "benign" racism shocked white and black residents alike across the entire city. Now, Sherman Industries is trying to relocate its toxic downtown concrete manufacturing facility to a stable, black residential neighborhood in the Five Points West community. Woodfin has already committed his support for the relocation plan even though the concrete manufacturing process may poison the air these residents breathe, the ground their children play on, and the water they drink. How can the presence of young black children at an MLB Youth Baseball Academy be considered “toxic” and dangerous to a predominantly white Birmingham residential neighborhood but not the presence of a concrete manufacturing facility that poisons the air, ground, and water in a black residential neighborhood? Judas Iscariot got "thirty pieces of silver" for betraying Jesus Christ. What did Mayor Randall Woodfin and his cronies get for betraying the taxpaying, law-abiding, civic-minded, hard-working, residents and homeowners in the Five Points West community? Only Randal Woodfin can answer these tough questions. My job is to ask them. PHOTO: Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin is backing Sherman Industries' controversial plan to relocate its toxic downtown concrete manufacturing facility to a stable black neighborhood in Five Points West. District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt exposed Woodfin's complicity in this act of blatant environmental racism. Woodfin is not worried because he is basking in the warm glow of his rock-solid campaign finance relationship with Birmingham's business community.