State Auditor Says Governor’s Mansion Restoration “Poor Stewardship” of BP Funds
State Auditor Jim Zeigler is accusing Governor Robert Bentley of misusing oil spill money from BP. In a statement released today, Zeigler says a reporter and photographer from the New York Times are in Alabama looking into Bentley’s use of $1.8 million of BP money to restore the governor’s mansion at the Gulf in Baldwin County. The property has been abandoned since 1997 after suffering hurricane damage.
Bentley spokeswoman Jennifer Ardis says the money the governor is putting toward repairing the mansion was left over from a $25 million BP grant. That was one of two $25 million grants BP issued the state in 2010. Ardis says the governor plans to use the Fort Morgan beach house to showcase the Gulf Coast, and promote economic development.
State Auditor Jim Zeigler says that’s nonsense.
“That’s a pretty good story,” he says. “I don’t think the people of Alabama are buying it and I don’t think the people of the Gulf Coast who were affected by the oil spill will buy that.”
Zeigler says it’s poor stewardship of money that should’ve gone toward cleanup and to businesses affected by the oil spill.
Jim Ziegler's Facebook Page
The 7,500-square-foot gubernatorial mansion that wasn’t repaired after Hurricane Danny in 1997.
YouTube agrees to pay Trump $24 million to settle lawsuit over Jan. 6 suspension
YouTube is the latest social media company to pay Trump tens of millions of dollars to resolve lawsuits brought before he returned to power. The money will fund a new ballroom at the White House.
From painting to producing: Birmingham DJ Andrea Really releases first album
Birmingham DJ Andrea Really wasn't always a music producer. She used to be a prolific painter. But when her art studio burned down in 2017, she pivoted careers. Really spoke with WBHM about that journey upon the release of her first album this summer, called Zeitgeist.
A year after Helene, a group of raft guides embarks on a river clean-up mission
A popular rafting river in the Appalachian mountains is still closed a year after Hurricane Helene, because there's just too much debris. Now, rafting guides have come together to help clean it up.
Lesotho’s Famo music: from shepherd songs to gang wars
In Lesotho, a style of traditional accordion music called Famo has become entangled with deadly gang rivalries. Once the soundtrack of shepherds and migrant workers, today it's linked to killings, government bans — and a fight over cultural identity.
Comic Cristela Alonzo grew up in fear of border patrol. ICE has ‘brought it all back’
For the first seven years of her life, Alonzo lived in an abandoned diner in a south Texas border town. Her new Netflix stand-up special is called Upper Classy.
Compass-Anywhere real estate merger could squeeze small brokerages
The deal, announced earlier this week, would combine the two largest U.S. residential brokerages by sales volume.
