Jefferson County Commissioner Larry Langford wants to make way for a Wal-Mart in Birmingham’s Titusville neighborhood, bucking opposition to the project from Commissioner Shelia Smoot and Birmingham City Councilor Steven Hoyt. In the commission’s Thursday morning work session, Langford put a resolution on the agenda for next Tuesday voicing the commission’s blessing for the project.

Last month, Wal-Mart openly expressed interest in the site, which Birmingham and Jefferson County had rehabilitated from a brownfield. Just west of I-65 in downtown Birmingham, the local governments had paid to cleanup industrial waste left by the now-defunct Trinity Steel plant. In addition to offering more than the cleanup costs to buy the site, Wal-Mart has promised as much as $1 million of investment into the surrounding neighborhood. The retailer could bring in more than $4 million per year in sales taxes and occupational taxes for the city and county.

Commissioner Smoot and Councilor Hoyt had opposed the development, saying the county and city should wait for a better use than a big-box retailer. However, neighborhood leaders have pleaded for them to approve the project, saying Wal-Mart would provide neighborhood jobs and a closer place for residents to shop inside the city limits.

During the meeting, Commissioner Langford thanked Smoot for spearheading the brownfield cleanup. But according to Langford, Wal-Mart intends to pay more for the site than the city and county have put into it, essentially giving the two governments a profit for their work. That money, he argued, could pay for more brownfield rehab in Birmingham and Jefferson County.

Smoot said she didn’t know if she would vote for the resolution, but Commissioners Bobby Humphryes and Bettye Fine Collins both seemed to agree with Langford’s proposal.

In other business, the county is again at odds with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department on enforcing a county ordinance, this time on the legality of county bingo parlors. According to county officials and the Sheriff’s Department, there are two conflicting Alabama laws regarding bingo operations in the county. The Sheriff’s Department is eager to shed enforcement duties, which it says takes up too much time for its vice and narcotics squad. The commissioners agreed to ask the Alabama Attorney General Office for an opinion on the enforcement issue and the apparent contradiction between the two laws.

— Kyle Whitmire