bingo hearing and more

I will be covering the Walker County bingo hearing at 3:30 p.m. in Room 330 of the Jefferson County Courthouse on Thursday, March 26. I'll be representing not only WJLX but also the Alabama Baptist weekly newspaper. This is the hearing that involves the Walker County Political Accountability Coalition wanting to see the permit applications for electronic bingo charities in Walker County, as there are questions about the validity of some charities.

Meanwhile, I learned this week that a full list of the charities is on display at the Walker County Courthouse, along with expiration date and assigned bingo hall. It is in a narrow basement hallway outside of the bingo compliance officer's office -- under glass. No paper copies are allowed to be distributed, and there were lines of bingo-related people in the hallway when it first went up trying to scribble the information down on paper.

As for Thursday, because of the hearing and the home and garden show being set up by my station for this weekend, the show will be taped in advance but will feature a reading of the full statement released by Jasper Councilman Johnny Rollins to WJLX on Tuesday about the new position being created for a public works director/engineer. Rollins said it was released to other Jasper media as early as March 2 but was never published. Since he is an elected councilman (as opposed to just anyone coming off the street to vent), I feel obligated to read the entire statement as a matter of record. Mayor Sonny Posey has denied some of the allegations in the statement. I also hope to include the recorded statement from Bevill State's president concerning the cuts that could be approved by the state board of education on Thursday.

On Friday, I will be on both WJLX-AM and WJBE-FM from 2-4 p.m., a special two-hour live broadcast from the home and garden show at the Jasper Mall. We hope to feature Sheriff John Mark Tirey and banker and chamber retail official Walker Wilson, as well as some others we are trying to line up. We hope you will join us at the center of the mall Friday, as well as on the radio and the Internet.

I'm still proud of what we're doing on this show. We were the only news organizations to cover the last Dora City Council meeting over the past week (and the first to report on Carbon Hill's meeting). We were the first in the county to report about the rise in the county unemployment rates, and we reported today that state Rep. Tommy Sherer abstained on the food sales tax vote because he was not comfortable with how the funding would be made up. We were the first to report about the public works director/engineer matter from Jasper's meeting and ran a 30-minute segment taped from the meeting hours earlier. We were the first to report that the county had been confirmed to receive more than $200,000 in stimulus funds and that it would have more time to use the money, thus preventing the county from having to give the money back. We were the first to report that Dora firemen had formed a bingo charity to help the fire department using the department's name in the title...while the council had earlier voted not to receive bingo money. (We ran a long portion from that discussion as well.) We've been the first to report stock closings and breaking legislative developments from Montgomery.

I hope we can offer a service in breaking the local stories of interest and bringing listeners into public meetings, as well as informing and entertaining them with our guests. No other news outlet in Walker County is offering anything like we do, and I hope advertisers and listeners in our market will support this effort. Again, we are also streamed live on http://www.walkercountyradio.com/ and the shows are archived there for a week to be downloaded.

A final word for the moment: I'm getting so old I am forgetting my age. I got off track during a morning show on WJBE Wednesday. I think someone asked if I was 32 and I kept saying I was 36. Actually, I meant to say I turned 46. In fact, it got me messed up all day and I had to keep correcting myself, for some reason. I think we can now really say I am old when I can't remember how old I am! At any rate, 46 or not, I appreciate the many kind words I received Wednesday. It has been a difficult time of transition, and the day was a welcome comfort to me.

Added to this happiness on Wednesday was my interview that day with Jarrod Jones, which I think was important for many people to hear concerning the problem of sexual problems and looking at it from a Christian perspective. I would encourage you to look up this show on the Web site, archived as Wednesday's show, and give it a listen. You can also find links to his material at http://www.jarrodjones.com/.