It has been a rough week for the organized environmental movement in the state of Alabama.
Yellowhammer was first to break the story of financial disclosures showing millions of dollars being funneled to enviro groups to implement the ‘War on Coal’ on Alabama. Alabama coal miners have since then called for a congressional investigation into whether the groups used taxpayer money “in their attempt to kill coal jobs in Alabama.”
Now, email records obtained through open records requests reveal that government employees working for the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham shared privileged information with the Southern Environmental Law Center in an attempt to aid their efforts to halt progress on The Northern Beltline.
THE NORTHERN BELTLINE — ADVOCATES & OPPOSITION
Once completed, the Northern Beltline will be a 52-mile highway that will run from Interstate 59 in northeast Jefferson County to the Interstate 459 and I-20/59 junction in southwest Jefferson County. The first phase of construction is set to begin in 2014.
“The Northern Beltline will support economic development and additional job creation in Jefferson County,” Gov. Bentley said in support of the project.
A 2010 study by the University of Alabama’s Center of Business and Economic Research found that the project would support up to 70,000 jobs. It could also lead to almost 21,000 more jobs in the coming years.
The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers approved the permit for construction, but the Southern Environmental Law Center in late October filed a lawsuit on behalf of a local environmental group, Black Warrior Riverkeeper Inc., challenging the permit and seeking to block construction.
“The Northern Beltline will cross and permanently alter Black Warrior and Cahaba river tributaries in 67 places,” Nelson Brooke of Black Warrior Riverkeeper said. “The (Alabama Department of Transportation) and (Federal Highway Administration) have not adequately studied impacts to water resources and wildlife along the entire chosen route, which is the longest and most environmentally destructive of the seven routes considered.”
REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION OF GREATER BIRMINGHAM
When federal government money is coming into a state for transportation projects, a group of local elected officials (e.g. city councilmen, mayors, county commissioners, etc.) plan out how those funds can best be used. That group of elected officials is called a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), which is funded by 90 percent federal dollars and 10 percent money from the state.
The Metropolitan Planning Organization then hires a Regional Planning Commission. These individuals are charged with executing the mission given to them by the MPO. They do all the legwork.
The Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham (RPCGB) was tasked by our Metropolitan Planning Organization with handling the Northern Beltline Project. The Executive Director of the RPCGB is Charles Ball. Darrell Howard is his deputy director of planning. They are both taxpayer-funded government employees.
COLLUSION BETWEEN THE REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS
Once the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham was told to move forward with the Northern Beltine project, RPCGB executive director Charles Ball and his deputy director of planning, Darrell Howard, began work.
However, emails reveal that Howard and other employees of the RPCGB seem to have spent a good bit of his time actually working to harm the Northern Beltline project, rather than advance it, as their job required them to do.
Here are three easy-to-understand ways they did that:
1. On Jan. 3, 2012, RPCBG began the process of selecting a consulting firm to “serve as General Planning Consultants… for the sole purpose of aiding the RPCGB to develop the update of the Birmingham metropolitan planning area’s long-range transportation plan.” The contract was worth $250,000 and firms interested in applying were instructed to submit their response in a “sealed envelop” to Darrell Howard. Nine firms applied. The top 3 would be eligible to receive the contract.
On. Feb. 22, 2012, Howard received an email from the Southern Environmental Law Center, whose staff had — for reasons unknown — been allowed to “rank” which consulting firm they thought would be best. They ranked Renaissance Planning Group as their top choice. Mr. Howard followed suit and ranked his top 5 choices exactly as SELC did.
The City of Birmingham and Shelby County also completed evaluations of the firms. Renaissance Planning Group actually ranked last or near the bottom in their rankings. Yet they somehow were ranked third in the composite rankings, making them eligible to receive the contract.
Renaissance Planning Group was given the contract, as SELC hoped.
SUMMARY: SELC, a group suing to stop the Northern Beltline, appears to have inexplicably been allowed by Mr. Howard to choose which consulting firm would oversee an important part of the transportation plan leading up to the Northern Beltline project. RPCGB executive director Charles Ball on Wednesday denied that SELC had any influence over the decision.
2. The SELC hired a group called The Ochs Center to create data to counteract the University of Alabama’s economic impact study that showed the Northern Beltline being a huge economic boon for central Alabama.
Before the study was released publicly, the SELC contacted Mr. Howard to ask if they could meet with them and a representative from the Ochs Center to go over the data.
Howard agreed, but only if they could meet at a location where their meeting could be kept secret. “I’d prefer someplace a bit off the beaten path — for obvious reasons,” Howard said in an email to Sarah Stokes and Keither Johnston of the SELC.
Once the Ochs Center’s economic impact study was completed in an attempt to discredit the University of Alabama’s positive review of the Northern Beltline, the SELC shared it with Howard. He in turn sent it to The Birmingham News the next day.
“I’ve got a new report re: the Northern Beltline from the Ochs Center out of UT Chattanooga that picks apart the CBER Economic (Center for Business and Economic Research at the Univ. of Alabama) Study that was done for NBL (Northern Beltline) proponents,” Howard said in an email to Birmingham News reporter Thomas Spencer. “I’ll forward it to you if you (sic) like.”
Spencer wrote about it in the paper that day in a story titled, “Report says economic benefits of Birmingham’s Northern Beltline exaggerated.”
SUMMARY: Howard, a taxpayer-funded government employee whose job at the time was to advance the Northern Beltline project at the direction of his superiors, appears to have been working in secret to undermine the project using the SELC-commissioned economic study by The Ochs Group, even to the point of actively pursuing media coverage of the study to negatively influence public opinion.
3. On Feb. 26, 2011, Alison Howell of the Birmingham Business Alliance sent an email to their members, including the RPCGB, encouraging them to vote in favor of the Northern Beltline in an online poll.
Bill Foisy, who was at one time Director of Transportation Planning at the RPCGB, forwarded that email to RPCGB employees, including Mr. Ball and Mr. Howard, with the comment, “vote early and often against as designed. That ought to get the chambers’ attention.”
SUMMARY: Foisy’s use of the language “as designed,” suggests the RPCGB had communicated internally to undermine the Northern Beltline project. By coordinating internally to vote against the Beltline in the online poll, government employees of the RPCGB again appear to be attempting to negatively influence public opinion of the Northern Beltline, in direct conflict with the job the taxpayers are paying them to do.
RPCGB QUESTIONED ABOUT THEIR ACTIONS
Sen. Slade Blackwell, R-Mountain Brook, who serves on the Alabama legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee, on Wednesday questioned RPCGB executive director Charles Ball about the incidents laid out above, as well as other ways the RPCGB appears to have undermined the Northern Beltline project by colluding with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Ball ultimately requested not to answer any further questions without an attorney present. Blackwell told him the Joint Transportation Committee will draft additional questions and give him 30 days to respond.
“It’s not really about the Northern Beltline,” Blackwell told Yellowhammer. “It’s about employees undermining a process that’s been directed by the Metropolitical Planning organization and the RPC to go down this path. They’re undermining it as much as they can throughout the whole process. It’s like Legislative Reference Services (in-house attorneys at the State House who draft bills for legislators) writing a bill for me, while at the same time trying to stop it from passing. With the recent incidences in Jefferson county that have eroded the public’s trust in government, when information like this comes to light it is our duty to ask the tough questions and hold folks accountable.”
U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, who had been made aware of the issues in late October, sent a letter to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation Inspector General requesting that he review what had taken place.
“Given that U.S. Department of Transportation funds are involved, it is imperative that the expenditure of such taxpayer money comply with all applicable program requirements,” Bachus said. “It would be my request that the Office of Inspector General review the enclosed documents to help ensure that the planning process steps are properly taken.”
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