Reid Ingram and Will Barfoot just want to be proactive.
No, really. That’s all their bill is about: a bill that would allow the Alabama Attorney General or Governor to appoint an interim police chief to any city whose crime rate exceeds a certain arbitrary level.
“They’re just two people taking action,” Reid said of the bill to al.com.
But isn’t that odd? When did a Republican-led Congress decide to act aggressively? And how aggressively?
For example, they would never acknowledge that 70 years of discrimination, underfunding of education, and neglected neighborhoods can lead to increased crime, violence, and general anger. They would never inject funds into local schools or implement programs to ensure that certain individuals are not overlooked for job and educational opportunities solely because of the color of their skin or economic situation.
No, by “aggressive” I mean picking a police chief because you desperately need people to forget the systemic failures brought about by decades of failed conservative thinking, and instead blame Black people who are responsible for all the problems you left in their wake.
“Proactive” is the story of two guys who don’t live in Montgomery (they both live on Pike Road) trying to take away the mayor’s powers, not to improve the city or help its citizens, but for political purposes.
I get it, you don’t like Steven Reed and you take every opportunity to attack Mayor Montgomery in a childish attempt to politically undermine him. You hate that he’s actually a pretty good mayor who has attracted more businesses and created more jobs than any mayor south of Huntsville.
But this is pathetic.
Worse yet, even to those who aren’t fans of Reid, it’s clear that this political ploy (and all of it) is laughably useless.
I mean, do you really think Montgomery’s problems are because the people leading the city aren’t trying hard enough? That the acting police chief doesn’t know the law well enough? That this stupid bill isn’t just a Montgomery problem, and that someone outside the city might have a better understanding of the day-to-day issues inside the city?
We all know the real answers to these questions, just as we all know that this Bill is nothing more than a shameful public relations stunt that is neither serious nor helpful.
To be honest, both Mr. Ingram and Mr. Barfoot have shown themselves to be either incredibly ignorant or ruthless politicos, the only two options available to people who live near Montgomery and presumably know something about its history and issues, yet choose this approach to addressing these issues.
The most obvious evidence is their admission that this bill is based on the impression held by many that, for a variety of reasons, violent crime is “out of control” in Montgomery, even though Montgomery’s violent crime rate is not even in the top five in the state – Bessemer, Birmingham, Anniston, Mobile and Gadsden all rank higher.
In terms of overall crime rate, the city isn’t even in the top 20 in the state.
However, this is not to say that crime isn’t a problem, or that there aren’t any significant issues in Montgomery that need to be addressed.
But these problems need to be addressed with serious solutions and by serious people, not half-baked, mayor-burning nonsense that doesn’t help anyone.
For example, how about reversing the ridiculous bill banning occupational tax increases that was passed by the Legislature in direct response to Governor Reed and the Montgomery City Council’s plans to raise taxes in Montgomery?
I wonder if Ingram and Barfoot took that into consideration when they spoke about the police shortage in Montgomery, when part of the tax increase was meant to go towards hiring more police officers.
In fact, Montgomery’s current leadership has been left with a plethora of problems by its many leaders, from the former mayor and city council members who took every opportunity to marginalize and denigrate certain citizens, to state legislators who have taken every opportunity to concentrate power in the state legislature and make it nearly impossible to reverse the effects of decades of racism, indifference and ignorance.
If we really want to help, we can start by acknowledging these facts and not acting as if the election of a black mayor suddenly solved decades of problems, because we all know that it is.
