Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Going after the Birmingham Waterworks Board and that got kicked
by a judge and said no, it's got a nice driver.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Not there. They all got kicked by the judge.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Right, So wow, here we are what a difference a
day makes and mayor woodfund according to Wadlon COVANU daylight
and a dollar short with your lawsuit against k Ivy
and trying to get her to sign to stop moving
forward with the reconstruction, redevelopment, rebuilding and of the Birmingham
Waterworks Board coming out of the Birmingham Club and now
(00:28):
moving to Montgomery. So let's start back at the beginning
with your lawsuit. First of all, you got involved and
filed this class action lawsuit because of the ratepayers and
the bill players, you know, getting kind of screwed in
all of that.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
They called them unicorn bills and it was widely publicized
unicorn bills. I got involved, and then then once I
was doing that, I had an insider that was giving
me information about the corruption JT. And we tried to
fix it and we just couldn't get past motions to
dismiss and pretty much they just you know, I was
me against eleven attorneys at one point, and we just
(01:03):
couldn't get where we needed to be. But it's so
exciting to see that happening now that the state has
finally decided that enough is enough.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, I think we've seen over the years lots of
problems with Birmingham Waterworks Board, from just bad operations and
incompetency to illegal activity.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, it's the money, JT. I've said it all many times.
Follow the money, Roger Smithman told me in law school
a long time ago. Anything out of Montgomery followed the money.
And when you're in politics, they get rich or off
the politics and these boards and right now I think
they're scrambling to hand out multi million dollar contracts JT.
And it's got to be stopped.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Who does the Birmingham Waterworks Board answer to It's not
like the gas company or the power company, where there's
the Utilities Commission that kind of oversees that. Who do
they answer to?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
No one? They answered to no one.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
It's their own entity.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
And that's why when you call them, they tell you
do this, do that. And then if they really just.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Don't care, Yeah, well people do care in Montgomery, and
the governor does care, and she is going to sign
this the judge told the Randall woodfind in the lawsuit,
I'm not stopping this process here. She can go ahead
and sign this, but I'm going to set a hearing
for the fifteenth. I believe Judge Emily C. Marks down
(02:20):
in Montgomery has this case. She did not grant their
emergency motion for a temporary restraint in order, and she
set a hearing for May fifteenth down in Montgomery. I
believe it's at nine o'clock. It's open to the public.
I know the public is so concerned over this. I
still get calls about the unicorn bills. I've got two
pending lawsuits against the waterworks as we speak, but those
(02:42):
are individualized lawsuits.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
All right, now, is this thing moved forward? It moves forward.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I anticipate Governor Ivey will sign this, and I believe
that ultimately is not going to be the way it
is currently run now at the Burringa water worksport. They
will have a different map, if you will, as to
who's represented, and those people in charge now will probably
not be in charge down the road. How many times
have they changed leadership?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
But Birmingham Waterworks bored could be a completely different entity,
as we all have known it to be. If everything
moves in the direction that Montgomery wants it to move into,
I do believe that that is coming. It will happen,
and it will be completely revamped and rebuilt from what
it has been doing for years and years and years.
Scott Morrow, attorney or in the studio with us. You know,
(03:28):
I got to look at this lawsuit that Woodland filed
against Governor Ivey to stop this whole process, and let's
just call it, this.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Was going to be played.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
The race card has certainly been played, and it is
on page four of this lawsuit here where this constitutes
blatant racial discriminations and as an affront to Birmingham's elected
leadership and its citizens for her to move forward with
this hold just a minute now. I get where the
civil rights capital of the world here, but I mean,
does every lawsuit if you're going to be in Birmingham,
(03:59):
where you're when somebody over a bad box of cheerios,
or a somebody slipping in a restaurant and falling, or
you're sewing the Birmingham Waterworks board to move forward and
change the structure, play the race card, Attorney's bring the
race card in here and put it on the table.
This is all race issues here as to why they
want to take it away from us the way we're
doing it now, and JT you.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Know as well as I do. It's not about race.
It's about efficiency. It's about the customers want bills that
are correct. They want good water. It wouldn't matter what
color the people were. If it was run right, they
wouldn't be doing this this one hundred per sev would
not be doing this.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
All right.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
With that said, now we've got an issue where the
governor is going to sign this. I do believe yes,
it will move forward. Judge said, no, I'm not blocking,
but we do have a hearing. I'll schedule a hearing.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
What will take place at this.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Hearing there's not only the due process an equal protection
clause of the fourteenth and fifth Amendment that's going to
be discussed. That's the underlying assumption that this case is making,
that it's against the Americans in Birmingham. But they're going
to discuss all of the other provisions of the tro request,
(05:06):
which is procedural, which would be severability aspects, which would
be the way the House bill is constructed, things that
are in it things that are not things that are
constitutional against the US Constitution as well as the Alabama
State Constitution. There are rules by which, like they're saying,
(05:27):
once you're on the board, you can't be removed. And
that's one case that's in here, and there's other aspects
of law that the city is attacking the bill on.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Would you say that this move and going to Montgomery
and potentially ending up where we all kind of want
it to be is the biggest move forward in getting
changed done at the Bremam Waterworks Board we've seen in years.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, you know, and JD.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
That's our system in the United States is that you
have a controversy and a genuine issue of material fact
for a judge to rulan and that you present the arguments,
and then presidents setting cases and law that is on
the books is what's supposed to guide the judge, and
they they you know, put together a proper ruling that's
(06:11):
supposed to be fair and it's supposed to be just
all right.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Now, when you have this situation going on, who brought
this to Montgomery? Who started this ball that's rolling right
now to get it to Montgomery, to get the legislature
and the governor involved.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, that would be some of our local legislatures here,
legislators here.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
They started the bill, it gained momentum, They went back
and forth, both both parties, and they came up with
a bill that they that they could live with.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
These efforts have been tried before, and I guess the
combined body of our legislative body there has kind of said,
now that's a Birmingham thing, let them deal with that.
It never really gripped onto it. What was the changing
point for the entire body of the legislative folks down
there that said okay, yeah, let's get this moving down
here and take a look.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
I think it was just about the efficiency of the bills,
and people wanted to wanted it done right and they're
sick of the then wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, enough is enough, and so here we.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Are all right.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
The big push in this whole thing is to get
different representation outside of the Birmingham area. Don't exclude Birmingham. Yeah,
but make it fair. And I could speak to that
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
They're going to have Birmingham City Council will pick Jefferson
County Commission a pick the governor. Lieutenant Governor Shelby County
has won plus one because they have a reservoir. Blund
County has won plus one because they have a reservoir.
I've been told that they once Kivy signs it, there's
twenty day period that these people have to be put
in place. So part of the lawsuit is saying that
(07:39):
when you remove them, then you're going to if you
have an emergency during that time, it's going to be
detrimental to the citizens. But all right, I don't think
that's the case.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Mayor woodfind ensued Governor Ivy to stop this process right now.
A judge has waged in and said no, no, you
can go ahead and move forward, Governor and sign this
if you'd like, but there will be a hearing a
week from tomorrow that's going to be May fifteenth in Montgomery,
to discuss this process.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Here, Scott, let's move forward and assume.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
That because it's gotten this far down the road, sure
that it will maintain this course and something will happen
that will be completely different from what we know as
the Birmingham Waterworks Board. Now, if the governor called you,
let's say after the hearing and everything has been given
the green light to move forward with the changes and Governor,
I have you picked up the phone and said, Scott Morrow,
(08:26):
you've been involved in this before, you know what's going on.
I would like to make you the Birmingham Waterworks Board
new boards czar. What would be your steps first three
things you would do or how you would put new
people on the board and what would you like to
see accomplished? What would you do as the leader of
the pack if you will?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, the first thing is you have to have your
emergency water service people in place so that the people
are the citizens are getting their water and so you
have to have somebody with that expertise that knows how
to organize that. And I think that's the point of
what's happening here is that there's certain restons, frictions on
each selection that the county gets in the city that
have certain expertise in an area engineering, business, finance and
(09:08):
of course the billing. So somebody needs to be able
to look at the way they're billing and make sure
that you don't have these unicorn bills. You need to
hire people to read the meters. That's one of the
problems that I uncovered at was the meters weren't being
read and they were just guesstimating or just you know,
we would go from fifty dollars to six hundred dollars
or even higher. So the first thing I would do
(09:30):
was say, Okay, let's get a great staff of people
in here that are qualified to do the job and
that are looking out for the rate payers.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Okay, first thing, take care of the people that are
paying the bills on this. Let's get transparent about it,
let's get efficient with it, and let's be you know,
fiduciary responsibility.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
They want to come talk in a meeting, you don't
limit them to one.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Meter or two Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Now, Secondly, obviously, the reason this has gone to this
point is there's been a lot of assumption alleged you know,
problems in the background money raft and corruption and corruption.
So would you launch a full investigation as to what's
been going on and hold these people accountable for what
may have been illegal activity.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Well, I tell you the truth, I don't even need
an investigation because I already know I had inside information
from when I was filing my lawsuits in the past,
and we just couldn't get anywhere. And so yeah, I
would I would say the bid rigging, the payoffs, the kickbacks,
the invoice the ridiculous invoices where you have two machines
on a job or one and then you get charged
(10:33):
for two. All of that would need to stop. You'd
have to have honesty and integrity in your service and
in your people, and so you know, making the millions
of dollars out of being on a board, making the
millions and millions of dollars out of servicing the rate payers,
and in nepotism and favoritism.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
That's what needs to stop.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
And the reason there's so many people that are upset
about this that are already there because they're making millions
and millions, not hundreds of thousands, ten million, one hundred million.
This is a major money blow to the people that
are right now involved in the waterworks. So that's why
I'm going to intervene today. I'm looking at all of
(11:15):
this stuff. I'm going to intervene as a rate payer
and somebody who has two pending lawsuits right now against
the waterworks that are individualized lawsuits. But I'm interested in
what's going on and that for that reason, I think
I get to intervene as a rate payer at an interested.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Party, and I'm assuming our Attorney General, Steve Marshall is
all up in this as well.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yes, Steve Marshall represents Kivy Steve and his staff and
I'm sure they're right now looking at what has been
filed by the city as I have scrutinizing every line,
looking at the different counts because there's eight counts or
seven counts, and having an answer and be able to
present it appropriately in front of the judge so that
the judge has all the issues and the judge can
(11:57):
who's learned in the law, can.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Make a decision.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
This is going to be a mini series that you
don't want to miss an episode of, and it's not
just going to be one two hour movie. This will
have many, many more steps to go through before we
get to where we need to be with a setup
for the Birmingham water worksport. And I think we're really
at the beginning something great here.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Whether there's fisticuffs or not, I doubt it, but that's
how emotional it is.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Jt All right, Well, we'll be in touch. We'll stay
on top of it. Of course, Steve, thank you so
much for coming in our Scott. Rather, I'm thinking about
Steve Marshall Scott, Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Every time you invite me, I like to come in
and hopefully I give information to the listeners that meaningful
to them.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
It needs to change, and it needs to change for
the rate payers first and foremost.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Yeah, that's right, very good.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Seven fifty eight Now Alabama's morning News, Top of the
hour news coming up with the Fox, Leah Brandon too,
and to check on this Wednesday trafficking weather together as well.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Stay here