Opelika Ward 3 showdown

By Jennifer J. Foster

Opelika City Council president Jerry Teel announced May 27 that he will not run for re-election from Ward 3.

Exactly one month later, two candidates announced their intentions to try to replace him.

Lucinda Cannon released a statement that she will run for the seat. 

Cannon, a 25-year veteran of the real estate industry, and is a commercial real estate sales agent at First Realty. She has served on the Opelika Planning Commission for 18 months.

Cannon is an Opelika native who has “lived most of her life in the city,“ Beverly Harvey writes in today’s Opelika-Auburn News. Cannon has served two one-year terms as chairman of the Opelika Chamber of Commerce, facilitates the City of Opelika’s 20 Under 40 program and is a former teacher. She also administers the W. James Samford Foundation.

In a statement e-mailed to the media from her campaign consultant, Susan Fillippeli, campaign chairman Bill Brown said he “can’t think of a better combination of experience for Opelika. As a former teacher, Lucinda Cannon is passionate about making sure we have good schools for children. As a realtor, she understands business, growth and planning issues and will use that knowledge effectively on the City Council. And as a member of the Samford family, she is committed to not only preserving Opelika’s heritage but to assuring its future for our children and grandchildren.”

Perhaps in a swipe at ethical clouds that have dogged Teel, Cannon told Harvey, “I think I’ve proven myself as far as integrity.“

Cannon’s priorities include attracting new industries and businesses to Opelika, bringing in more high-paying jobs, devoting equal attention to Opelika City Schools and focusing on roads and public safety, Harvey writes.

“I see that Opelika has a bright future,” Cannon said. “We have a lot of positive things going for us, and I’d like to keep the momentum going.”

Read the full story here.

Harvey reports that Joey Motley will challenge Cannon for the seat.

Also an Opelika native, Motley, 51, is a lifelong resident of the city. He is a business manager at H & W Motors.

Previously, Motley worked as a plant manager for WestPoint Stevens for 34 years. He served on U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers’ manufacturing advisory committee in 2006 and 2007, Harvey writes, and his experience with WestPoint will provide him insight into how industries depend on and work with the city.

“I think we all have gifts,” Motley told Harvey. “I think leadership is one of mine, and I think I need to use it.”

Motley approves of the city’s current direction with regard to economic development and growth. Like Cannon, Motley also emphasized Opelika City Schools and public infrastructure as city priorities.

Read more about Motley here.

Qualifying opens Tuesday for the Aug. 26 city elections. 

Opelika residents, what would you like to hear these candidates—or Mayor Gary Fuller or challenger Rainer Meadows—say about your city and their plans for it? For those of you who live in Auburn or Lee County, there are plenty of issues on which local governments interact; what’s on your mind about this election? What are the cities and the county doing well, and what would you like to see them do better?

Let me know what you’d like to know, and we’ll get your questions answered here in the Caller Blog.

Primary roundup

By Jennifer J. Foster

It’s unfortunate, but true, that most Alabamians aren’t paying much attention to the local and state races that will be decided tomorrow.

Chalk it up to all the political oxygen being sucked up by the presidential race. But while Alabama voters turned out in big numbers for the presidential preference primary that was moved to Super Tuesday, all the other races were left on the regular schedule.

So, there are elections tomorrow. One race—a showdown between State Board of Education member Stephanie Bell and challenger Skip Smithwick—is making waves (more on that later). But most races are going relatively unnoticed.

If you live in the Opelika-Auburn News coverage area, pick up a copy of the paper today and give Joe McAdory’s editorial page a read. Joe has provided capsules for you on each of the candidates in every area race, contests from the U.S. Senate to the Lee County Constable.

The primary roundup is also available online here on the OA News’ web site.

You can also read expanded bios on the candidates by position here and see and hear many of them (including lesser-known Criminal Court of Appeals candidates) speak for themselves here.

You may not have realized or remembered that there is an election tomorrow. But you still have time—and the responsibility—to make an informed choice about who will govern you.

Educate yourself, pass the information along to at least two other people so they can do the same and make voting tomorrow a priority. You owe it to your country, the people who defend it, your state, your neighbors and yourself.

Falsehood in OA News reader letter

By Jennifer J. Foster

Opelika-Auburn News reader Jim Kimbrough has a letter to the editor in the newspaper this morning wherein he suggests that Barack Obama should have been removed from the U.S. Senate for not following protocol as it applies to decorum during the playing of the National Anthem.

Kimbrough then merged one tired, discredited Internet rumor about Obama—that his sometimes-failure to place his hand over his heart while the National Anthem is played indicates a disrespect for the Anthem—with a second, less-publicized (but still just as false) Internet rumor about Obama—that he thinks the Anthem “conveys a war-like message” and is “parochial” and “bellicose.“

Kimbrough goes on to quote Obama: “I like the song ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.‘ If that were our anthem, then I might salute it.“

Um, one tiny little problem, Jim: Obama never said any of these things about the Anthem.

As a mere 10 seconds of Googling proves, the quote was invented by conservative writer John Semmens, who used it in the Oct. 27, 2007, edition of his political satire column, “Semi-News.“ No fewer than 300 different web pages—including giants like FactCheck.org, Snopes.com and About.com’s Urban Legends section—have entries to that point, discrediting the erroneous attribution of the quote to Obama.

I don’t know why it is, but Obama has been the target of many more Internet rumors of this nature than Hillary Clinton or John McCain. I receive several e-mails a week with various versions of the rumor du jour. In fact, Obama’s campaign has had to devote an entire portion of its web site to the singular purpose of addressing such rumors, debunking them and replacing them with facts.

I also can’t understand why people who oppose Obama’s candidacy believe that the promulgation of false information helps their cause. The more erroneous information I receive from a source, the less likely I am to consider that person to be a credible source of political information—and that undermines any argument that person makes for his own candidate, whomever it may be.

On a personal note, there is little that is more aggravating to me than to have my e-mail box clogged with information that could be verified or discredited with just 30 seconds of Internet research. It is incomprehensible to me that the same people who happily hop on to the Internet to check their e-mail aren’t willing to use that same Internet to check the validity of the information they’re receiving in that e-mail.

And finally, when someone writes a letter to the editor for publication in a newspaper, that writer has—at the bare minimum—a responsibility to ensure the validity of the information he is providing in that letter. An author’s failure to meet that responsibility indicates a disturbing lack of concern over the possibility that he, intentionally or unintentionally, may be providing false information through the newspaper. Did Kimbrough know that the information he provided had been widely discredited? We can only hope not.

You’ve no doubt heard Mark Twain’s famous quote, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.“

It seems Mark Twain may have understood that people don’t mind spreading lies.

Cuts hit home

By Jennifer J. Foster

Lee County residents began to feel the first ramifications of the leadership vacuum in Montgomery this week.

The OA News’ own Brittany Whitley reports that some of the recent dismissals in the Lee County Schools system are the result of budgetary concerns.

According to the story, approximately 15 teachers were dismissed for budgetary concerns, and 15 more positions will remain unfilled and basically disappear, Superintendent Dr. Stephen Nowlin said.

More:

As for the budgetary layoffs, Nowlin said this is a new experience for Lee County.

“I don’t think they (citizens of Lee County) have ever had a reduction before based on budgetary consideration,” he said.

When the Alabama Senate gets around to putting together an education budget—now three days late and counting—Nowlin said he expects that Lee County’s budget will suffer a $2 million cut.

“That, compounded with the new Smiths Station High School plans that call for a yearly debt service of about $2 million, leaves the county needing $4 million,“ Whitley writes.

The elimination of 30 positions in Lee County schools isn’t enough; to cope with the budget shortfall, Nowlin said, the school system will be forced to reach into reserves for next year’s expenses.

Compounding the budget problem is the failure last fall of a property tax proposal that would have provided more money for local schools. Similar referenda failed in Auburn and Opelika.

One of the arguments for the property tax proposals last year was that the added money—which would come to schools in addition to state funding—would give local schools what they needed to overachieve in education.

Who could have known that schools would have needed that money to meet regular budget numbers?

Morning shock

By Jennifer J. Foster

I’ve already received some calls and e-mails about my picture in the Opelika-Auburn News this morning.

I have only two things to say about it: One, I had no idea it was coming; two, the feeling I got when I saw it is why I went into print instead of broadcast journalism.

Jeepers.