Langford gets that sinking feeling

Last January, in the backyard of a Bush Hills home in western Birmingham, a small hole opened in the earth. However, it didn’t stay small for long. The hole grew wider, and deeper, too. It swallowed a house and displaced two families. It threatened an expensive water main and nibbled away chunks of asphalt from a city street.

Sinkholes happen in Jefferson County, where ribbons of limestone and dolomite weave beneath the landscape. But this sinkhole had something else going for it – better public relations from a mayor in need of a crisis he didn’t himself create. With this bizarre act of nature as his backdrop, Mayor Larry Langford could appear his showman best – equal parts P.T. Barnum and Rudolph Giuliani.

A great visual drama like the sinkhole makes for good TV. There are ominous images of houses near the sinkhole – their futures uncertain. City trucks dump tons of sand, gravel, rocks and grout into the sinkhole, but to no avail. It has seemed as though the City of Birmingham itself might sink into the abyss.

Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford

Updates on the sinkhole have become a weekly refrain at City Hall, as Mayor Langford has obliged the council and the cameras with fun facts and figures and a ready-made news story.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

So far the sinkhole has cost the city nearly $1 million, and Mayor Langford wants the council to allocate another $600,000 to the on-going efforts. For Langford, after 30 years in political life, pouring money down a hole is no longer a metaphor.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

The tiny crisis couldn’t come at a better time for Langford. The sinkhole made for good TV in a way that other news stories in Birmingham haven’t. And that’s just as well for the mayor, because those other stories are not so flattering.

Across the park, in the Jefferson County courthouse, Langford’s long-time friend and political pal John Katopodis is suing HealthSouth, but it was Katopodis who seemed on the defense. Under cross-examination this week, Katopodis acknowledged that a charity he had created with Langford and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy had mishandled public money. Nearly half of the $200,000 the City of Birmingham gave to the charity was shifted to a nebulous organization called the Council of Cooperating Governments.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

Some of that money was withdrawn from ATMs at casinos, and $10,000 went to a scholarship fund run by Mayor Langford. Meanwhile, efforts by the City of Birmingham to audit the charity were thwarted. When a HealthSouth lawyer asked Katopodis if he had reported money paid to him by Scrushy on his income tax returns, Katopodis consulted with his lawyer.

“On advice of counsel, I refuse to answer that,” he said.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

On Tuesday, Mayor Langford took the stand in the trial. He testified that Scrushy had promised Katopodis a piece of Southside property, but he contradicted some of Katopodis’ testimony as well as a deposition he’d given earlier.

A HealthSouth lawyer asked Langford if he had served on the charity’s board.

“Just to incorporate it,” Langford said.

The lawyer then asked him if he had served on the board until he resigned from it in 2003. Langford indicated that was correct. That means Langford served on the board for three years after the charity was incorporated.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

The controversy surrounding Langford and Katopodis’ Computer Help for Kids charity still haunts the mayor’s new program to give laptops to Birmingham school children. Initially, Langford had tasked Katopodis with setting up the program, but Katopodis withdrew after details from the HealthSouth lawsuit became public.

The Birmingham Board of Education has reacted with suspicion toward Langford’s program. Board members were insulted by comments the mayor made during a council meeting. Langford has said he might distribute the laptops directly to the children without the school board’s cooperation. 

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

The mayor is having problems getting along with the city council, too. This week the council learned that Langford had not hired a Washington lobbyist, because the council had not approved the particular lobbyist Langford wanted. While Langford was eager and anxious to hire a lobbyist last month, now he seems nonchalant on the issue as the city goes unrepresented in D.C.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

Finally, work will get underway to build a domed stadium, sometime after the city is done studying the issue some more. (And Birmingham politicos thought studies went extinct with the Kincaid administration.) A group of Birmingham business leaders have agreed to study where to put the facility. The study should be complete sometime this summer.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

Langford prefers a site near the Birmingham Race Course, which would benefit his largest campaign contributor, Milton McGregor. Don’t bet on a dome making it there, though, not unless it comes with one mighty big septic tank. Jefferson County won’t be building new sewer expansions, as nearly all that money will go to debt service. Economic development as we have known it in Jefferson County is at an end.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

The sewer debt has ballooned because the county left itself vulnerable to the market. Too-good-to-be-true schemes to lower sewer rates have turned out to be a giant sub-prime mortgage. Most of this financing was laid in place during Langford’s tenure as commission president, and all of it was done with the guidance of Steve Sayler. Sayler used to be finance director for Jefferson County, but last year Langford hired Sayler to be the city’s finance chief. This after Langford, in an SEC deposition, laid much of the blame for the county’s woes on Sayler.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

Of course the feds are curious about Langford’s role in the sewer debt, among other things. He’s already testified to the SEC, as have some of his political pals. But his testimony didn’t answer all questions.

Maybe that’s why, when Langford and Katopodis testified Tuesday, two federal investigators sat in the back of the courtroom taking notes.

And the sinkhole gets deeper.

War on Dumb is a column about political culture. Write to kyle@bhamweekly.com