In This Issue

A Great Week for Red Mountain Park

Last Tuesday, in a 4-1 decision, the Jefferson County Commission voted to allocate $7 million to the Black Warrior - Cahaba Rivers Land Trust for the purchase of Red Mountain Park lands from US Steel. Thanks to all of you who helped bombard the commissioners with supportive emails in these last few days. The Friends' impact was huge—Commission Langford spoke to the volume of supporting email he had received by pleading to Land Trust Executive Director Wendy Jackson to "turn off the flood" now that the measure was going to pass. It was a funny but significant moment as it demonstrated the effect of a focused campaign that had only 4 days to materialize.

We should all thank the Commissioners for their support, and if you have time for a letter, please let them know that they did the right thing by writing:

Jefferson County Commission
Jefferson County Courthouse
716 Richard Arrington Jr Blvd North
Birmingham, AL 35203

What this means specifically is that the Land Trust will be working out financing with US Steel to provide a timetable for when the land can actually be handed over. With this guaranteed financing in hand, our federal lobbyist should be able to perk up ears in Washingto to enhance grant campaigning for funding the Master Plan (by Wallace, Roberts & Todd) and future constructions costs. The $7-million purchase price may eventually represent only a small portion of the monies necessary to open Red Mountain Park, but as a first step and insurance that US Steel's gift will not be in vain, it is the most important piece.

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Commission Recognizes Wendy Jackson, Land Trust Director

We would like to extend special congratulations to Land Trust Executive Director Wendy Jackson whose tireless hard work toward this goal and many other greenway projects in our area was acknowleged also by the Commission. She has been a great champion of the Friends group and a great visionary for our city. She also graciously sent our organization the following letter to celebrate our part in last week's success:

Dear Friends of Red Mountain Park,

It is with heartfelt appreciation that I write to thank you for your championship role in the recent success to secure a seven million dollar commitment to the park from the Jefferson County Commission. The Commissioners mentioned numerous times the outpouring of emails, phone calls and letters from citizens supporting the project. One Commissioner in particular told me that I "unleashed the hounds upon the Commission!". I am proud to call each of you a partner and please know that each of you has contributed significantly to making our community a better place!

Warm regards,
Wendy Jackson
Executive Director
205.214.8613
..securing hope for our rivers and streams!

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Friends Included in Birmingham News Editorial Board Meeting

Last Thursday, the Friends of Red Mountain Park were invited to attend a meeting with the New's Editorial Board and help pitch the park to Editor Tom Scarritt and Editorial Page Editor Bob Blaylock among others. The News has already been very attentive in its coverage of US Steel's Red Mountain Park offering, and we hope they will champion the park as we try to get the word out to the masses and represent this as a great opportunity for the surrounding communities. Their questions and comments indicated they will be following the story closely, so we should do our best to continually demonstrate the growing support the park is developing. Don't be shy about sending supportive editorials to the paper via email, letter or fax. Submissions to the editorial page may be sent to P.O. Box 2553, Birmingham, AL 35202, or epage@bhamnews.com or faxed to 325-3345, and should include a name, address and phone number. Read more submission guidelines here.

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RMP Roadshow Coming to A Location Near You

Bobby Humphrey, of Alabama football fame, who is also an active Friend and Land Trust Board Member joined Wendy Jackson and I for a brief segment on the Fox 6 Morning Show last month. I am sure that Bobby's support for the park helped us a great deal in convincing County Commissioners from all four districts that Red Mountain Park was a win-win for all. We hope that Bobby can continue to find time to help us get the word out.

Last week, Land Trust representative Libba Vaughan gave a wonderful presentation at the Homewood Library to the Friends of Shades Creek. The talk included a DVD showing, latest news discussion and an open Q&A session. As expected, there was alot of overlap and shared interest between the Shades Creek group and attending Red Mountain Park supporters. Though the park was an easy sell to that audience, several folks from Shades Creek organization who were familiar with the Master Plan process for Oak Mountain spoke about the absolute necessity of insuring that the public's voice is accounted for when the final plan for Red Mountain Park is delivered. It sounds like the final plan for Oak Mountain was close to completion before the public was ever consulted.

In our interviews with Wallace, Roberts & Todd, we were given those assurances, but it will be our job to make sure all public forums are announced far in advanced and that we try to present a thoughtful, cohesive vision for what we want to see included in the plan. If you know of a group or forum that might enjoy a presentation on Red Mountain Park, please let us know and we can forward requests to the Land Trust. Firming up support among all the various park user groups is one of our main concerns.

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Logo Design Competition Announced

Prior to launching a larger scale public awareness campaign next year, we are opening a logo design competition for Red Mountain Park. The chosen design will anchor the website, decorate T-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, etc. in the coming months. It will also be considered for adoption as the formal park logo when construction begins. Please send all submissions as email attachments (under 1mb) to info@redmountainpark.org. Make sure to include your name, phone and email. Any file format is acceptable for entry (JPG, GIF, PDF, EPS, etc) but we will want to use original artwork for future reproductions, so save your source art.

The deadline for submission is January 15th, 2006 and we will post finalists to the website for a vote. Spread the word to all your designer friends!

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Website Forums Open for Business

We have launched a Forums section on the website. Please check it out and add your thoughts. Go here to signup and post.

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Next Steps

With a contract in place between the Land Trust and the Commission to provide funding for the parks lands, we can now turn our attention to raising public awareness and collecting our wish lists in preparation for discussions with the landscape architects. The Master Plan is scheduled to be delivered sometime in the 2nd half 2006. That could mean groundbreaking for Red Mountain Park happens in early 2007. That may seem like a ways away, but consider that we will need to collect federal, local government, and private funds sufficient to finance an ambitious first phase of construction within that same time. That is why it will be so important to impress upon decision makers, at all levels, the widespread support for Red Mountain Park in the coming year. We will look forward to your help.

Thanks for your support,

John Cobbs
Friends of Red Mountain Park