Red Mountain Park Commission is Fully Appointed

The Red Mountain Park Commission, a state agency created by the Alabama Legislature to administer the proposed Red Mountain Park and Greenway Project, has been fully appointed. The 15th and final position was named last week, and will be filled by Ervin Batain--a former employee of the U.S. Steel Mining Division and founder of the 3D Mining museum which he maintains adjacent to the proposed park property. The Commission is currently engaged in fundraising for a phased approach toward park construction which would follow the recommendations of the Master Plan developed by the landscape firm Wallace, Roberts and Todd last year. We are excited that Commission is fully seated and look forward to some first steps toward groundbreaking in the near future. Read the full press release >

JeffCo Commission Funding Negotiations Ongoing

We have been told that the Jefferson County Commission, which had threatened to back out of their $7 million pledge to the park, has been involved this week in active negotiations with RMP Commissioners to reach a compromise. Again, we have to thank all of you who have helped remind the JeffCo Commissioners how important the park issue is to their voters. The impact of all your emails and letters in this debate has been enormous. If all goes well, we hope to have good news to share very soon.

Friends Group Featured in Birmingham News Story

Many thanks are due to Katherine Bouma, a staff writer for the Birmingham News who has followed the RMP project from its inception 2 years ago. Her most recent article (archived here), which ran on the cover of the Sunday edition this past weekend, was a nice description of the enthusiasm that characterizes the folks who make up the loosely associated Friends of Red Mountain Park. It rightly emphasized how important the RMP MySpace site, assembled by Mike Mahon and Nick Timkovitch, has been to our growth and reach. I would like to add a personal thanks to Tom Spencer, also a News staffer, who though uncredited in the article, was the real genesis of the Friends group. Tom recognized early on that a project like RMP would need widespread public visibility in order to survive, since politics would inevitably intervene. And they did.

Mostly though, the phenomenon the article describes is a testament to all of you who have spread the word about our group and maintain an attitude going forward that there is still plenty of good that can be done to move this city along. I'm hoping the political cloud which has overhung the park debate will clear up soon, and that all of our enthusiasm will soon produce some tangible results.

 
Thanks for your support,

John Cobbs
Friends of Red Mountain Park

[ Contact Us | Visit the Site ]

© 2007 Friends of Red Mountain Park  |  manage your subscription