Birmingham Election Qualifying Ends This Week — Who’s In?
Qualifying for Birmingham city elections ends this week, and the list of candidates so far includes several incumbents and other familiar names.
Council incumbents Lashunda Scales, Kim Rafferty, Valerie Abbott, Sheila Tyson and Jay Roberson have all qualified to run. Among school board incumbents, Cheri Gardner, Wardine Alexander, and Sandra Brown have qualified.
City Councilman Marcus Lundy is not seeking re-election. His seat on District 9 has attracted five candidates so far, including Roderick Royal, who previously represented the district, and John Hilliard, a former state representative.
Qualifying ends at 5 p.m. on Friday, July 7. (UPDATE: Click here to see those who qualified by the deadline).
The qualifying fee for mayoral candidates is $300, council is $50, and school board is $100. Candidates must qualify in the Jefferson County Probate Court.
As of Friday evening, 40 people had qualified to run for mayor, council, or school board.
Here’s the current list of candidates:
Mayor
Christopher Wyatt Woods
Lanny Edward Jackson
Ronaldo Merrell Davis
Randall Lee Woodfin
Council District 1
Lashunda Scales
Sherman Collins
School Board District 1
Bennie M. Holmes
Cedric Small
Council District 2
Kimberly Rafferty
Thomas Hunter Molton Williams
Tyrone Williams
Council District 3
Joseph Ryan Jones
Valerie Abbott
School Board District 3
Mary Boehm
Larry Contri
School Board District 4
Amber Marie Courtney
Council District 5
Dorothea Crosby
Eloise Manning
Darrell O’Quinn
David Schatz
Robert Walker
School Board District 5
Michael Millsap Jr.
Aaisha Muhammad
David McKinney
Buford Burkes
Council District 6
Sheila Tyson
Keith Williams
School Board District 6
Cheri Adams Gardner
Council District 7
Lonnie Malone
Jay Roberson
School Board District 7
Patricia McAdory
Wardine Alexander
Council District 8
Lynette Peters
School Board District 8
Antwon Womack
Council District 9
Reginald Swanson
David Russell
Roderick Van Royal
Wendell Warren Major
John Randall Hilliard
School Board District 9
Sandra Kelley Brown
NOTE: In some races, no candidates have qualified.
DHS memo details how National Guard troops will be used for immigration enforcement
The memo obtained by NPR says troops would be used in activities, including in "night operations and rural interdiction," as well as "guard duty and riot control" inside detention facilities.
Court fees can pile up. An effort to make a more effective system stalls after Trump administration cuts
Court fines and fees are meant to hold people accountable. But for many, they lead to debt, arrest, and a cycle that’s hard to break. A project that started in Birmingham explored aimed to make the system better. But recently, the Trump Administration cancelled an effort to expand the research.
On Japanese Breakfast’s melancholic record, Michelle Zauner might be ‘the happiest’ she’s ever been
Zauner joins us to talk about some of the themes behind For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women).
South Korean maestro Chung will be the first Asian to head Italy’s famed La Scala
Myung-Whun Chung will be one of the first non-Italians to take the post of music director at Milan's famous opera house.
‘The Life of Chuck’ might leave you brushing away tears — or scratching your head
Mike Flanagan's new film, a maudlin mystery about a man dying of cancer, feels hobbled by its extreme faithfulness to the Stephen King novella on which its based.
RFK Jr. is shrinking the agency that works on mental illness and addiction
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration has seen its staff cut by more than a third, and it's facing deep budget cuts. Progress on overdose deaths could be lost, experts warn.