Yes, I did. @bhamwatch.bsky.social has had a great journey so far. Here's to what's next... and to finding ways to feed the interests of those civically curious in #bham for some time to come!

The proposed ordinance would empower city officials to pursue foreclosure on nuisance properties in certain cases. “This is a judicial process that targets the property and not the person,” Katrina Thomas, director of the city’s Department of Planning, Engineering and Permits, told councilors.

I'm just going to think positive starts as we get this thing going again. Yes, it's Tuesday, but it's time for the Monday Morning Watch.

Our voter guide for next week's municipal elections in Birmingham, Alabama, is now available to peruse! Find candidate bios and profiles, sample ballots + a what-you-need-to-know primer as you head out to vote for mayor, City Council, and the school board.

It's official. "The Alabama Initiative for Independent Journalism is suspending publication of BirminghamWatch until at least early September, as it is unable to secure enough bridge funding to operate until grant funds are scheduled to arrive in October."

Hello, everybody! The nonprofit I run and its publication @bhamwatch.bsky.social need your assistance if possible. We'll need to suspend publishing late next week for a while if we're not able to secure some funds. Here's the 411:

I figured it was a good morning to wear my @jskstanford.bsky.social reunion T-shirt, especially considering how much this week felt like a roller coaster. The thumbs ups and first bumps made it feel like it was the right choice.

“It is not possible financially. It’s not realistic” for the city to maintain these properties for absentee owners, the mayor said. He added it would take roughly four years to cut this amount of lots one time with the city’s current personnel. birminghamwatch.org/2025/07/09/b...

While most service lines in the local system are not made of lead or galvanized metal requiring replacement under the new EPA rule, 471 lines are known to be made of those materials, and the material type of about 39,000 service lines is unknown. birminghamwatch.org/2025/07/09/b...

Thanks for sharing some info about us today, @brianlyman.bsky.social - and for collaborating with @bhamwatch.bsky.social this summer!

It was fun serving on the @opennews.bsky.social community panel for @srccon.bsky.social 2025. It's also one of the reasons I'll spend a lot of time in Minneapolis this summer. Looking forward to seeing folks there! 2025.srccon.org

When Frank Woodson initially announced his candidacy for mayor of Birmingham via an interview with @bhamwatch.bsky.social, it became one of the busiest weekends for the site in recent years. Check it out.

There's a reason for a long-term backyard garden project - a reminder to fully disconnect when needed.

Today's the day!

“At no point has a state legislator ever reached out to me or any of my colleagues to sit down with us and share their concerns,” [Birmingham City Council president] O’Quinn said. “This is not being done with us. This is being done to us.”

Listen: Thanks to Bob Irving, creator of Chicago Architecture Center’s boat tours, millions have seen Chicago’s skyline from the best seat in the house: the river. Irving died earlier this month at the age of 93. Reset reflects on his life and legacy. www.wbez.org/reset-with-s...

A lesson I'm learning: folks are more willing to spam the messenger instead of going out and actually "doing the work of engagement." Is the point to make noise or actually make a difference? Time will tell…

"These medians will add another layer of safety to prevent someone accidentally harming themselves or others,” Council President Pro Tem Wardine Alexander said. birminghamwatch.org/2025/04/01/b...

The statement, issued Thursday evening, came after the Alabama House of Representatives approved a $3.7 billion General Fund budget proposal for 2026 that did not include funding for the 32-year-old institution, the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame or the Magic City Classic.

Two things about the 2017 Alabama Senate race: 1) It’s very hard for people outside Alabama to appreciate how much the state GOP operation *hated* Roy Moore. He was on Year 16 of causing them grief. 2) Doug Jones ran a damn-near perfect campaign. Stuck to his message; refused to be baited.

The Alabama Humanities Alliance has suspended all grantmaking and halted booking Road Scholars visits in response to DOGE-recommended National Endowment for the Humanities budget cuts. No words.

Things I've realized I didn't miss those years not running a local newsroom - Part 5,000: Press releases sent in an attempt to see who'd bite on an April Fool's joke. Yeah...

I'm loving this quote from PARCA's Tom Spencer in this story about population growth in Birmingham metro: “I think it’s important for us to improve the quality of life of the people who are here and address underlying conditions,” he said.

Hey, @mlb.com, I'm wondering how we're supposed to be able to listen to the new voice of the @yankees.com call his first game if the app refuses to play the audio from the game. Just curious...

You're excited to hear the new voice of the Yankees, and you realize this season, MLB is making it that much harder than it used to be? Yep, that's where we are right now...

This is GREAT news!

ICYMI - One of the largest companies in the United States of America is now the title sponsor of the country's largest HBCU football game. The formal announcement dropped the day before a scheduled week-long boycott of said company. Yep, it's gonna be complicated.

Normally, I probably wouldn't care about my Internet still being out or about funding out it won't be back until tomorrow evening. I do wish is learned about the additional 24 hours by text and not just because I happened to get the mobile app and see the updated time there first.

The internet's out here at the house thanks to the wind gusts. Kind of peaceful forced disconnection

We're switching into Birmingham election coverage gear at @bhamwatch.bsky.social, and we'd like to hear from you as we do so. What issues are most important to you as we prepare to vote for mayor, City Council, and the Birmingham Board of Education?

The good news? I have access to a LinkedIn account. The bad news? For a bunch of reasons I'm slowly starting to understand, anything I'd posted originally on the account is now gone. That said, I did grab a screenshot of the old profile, so I know what I said profile-wise.

Not sure how long it'll last but I don't have access to my LinkedIn account right now. I probably did it to myself while falling asleep on my phone. I've submitted the help desk ticket and assume it will be a while, but we'll see.

I've leaned into calling Birmingham "The City Built to Change the South" in many recent conversations. I've also talked about @bhamwatch.bsky.social as more of a "60 Minutes" or "Sunday Morning" type of publication as we move forward

FYI - you can now find our latest stories on Nextdoor! Click below to follow along.

For most of the last year, we've been using a new answer to "What is BirminghamWatch (a.k.a. @bhamwatch.bsky.social)?" as it was clear we were trying to do too much (physically and financially). Granted, if you read us regularly, you've probably already figured it out.

This exchange from Tuesday's JeffCo Commission meeting is timely and useful, especially as more conversations abound about what happens after demolishing structures in metro Birmingham (and beyond).

I didn't have snow flurries in South East Lake on the bingo card for this morning, but here we are...

Speaking of said rebuild, @bhamwatch.bsky.social published an update on the Birmingham Crime Commission recommendations, including an embed of the document if you want to go deeper. It's going to be interesting to see how these reports evolve in the coming months.

It's been a while since I've tried anything like this, but earlier today I changed 9+ years of @bhamwatch.bsky.social URLs. It's doing exactly what I thought it would (and, honestly, what I hoped too). The rebuild is on...

The $250,000 grant would come from the Coalition for Green Capital, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Clean Investment Fund supports through a $5 billion grant. birminghamwatch.org/city-conside...

Interactive map of USAID agriculture cut impacts on farms, ports across the US storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/29fc...

Yep. 🦅

We've been publishing a weekly edition of our reading recommendations list, BW Recommends, @bhamwatch.bsky.social for about a month. Later this year, we plan to start sending it out as an email. Check out this week's edition. Please consider signing up for it or our other newsletters.

It'll be interesting to see how this next level of investment helps those in our community experiencing homelessness. I can't wait to see if more existing housing stock can be made available soon.

It's Monday, so it's time to share the link to the initial Monday Morning Watch rundown from over on @bhamwatch.bsky.social

Patrick Bradford, a partner at Bradford Edwards LLP of New York, said that many athletes, especially Black college basketball and football players, are unaware of the settlement. https://buff.ly/4hBdLQZ

We shared this story from Tuesday's City Council meeting via @bhamwatch.bsky.social. Seeing the portable HVAC units makes it hit differently now.

It'll be fascinating to watch the transformation of Woodlawn's commercial district into a transit-oriented one.

A city's heart can change, but its soul is there, waiting to be found and embraced. Discuss.