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Alabama Scene
They announced their decision in the pre-dawn hours Friday and you could almost hear the corks of champagne bottles popping all over southwest Alabama. The numbers are simply overwhelming… some 29,000 employees will be involved in building the huge facility and when completed it will provide 2,700 permanent high paying jobs. The plant will be located near Calvert in North Mobile County and will be built on a 3,700 acre site. In previous years attracting the likes of Mercedes, Honda, Hyundai were home runs….this was a grandslam home run. And if you feel the state gave away everything but the kitchen sink to get the plant I will simply say I felt the same way about Mercedes. I wrote columns and TV editorials venting my spleen…but how wrong I was. Certainly much credit must go to Gov. Bob Riley who hung tough throughout all the negotiations. Looking back years from now this may be the biggest feather in his cap during his two terms as governor. **** It is a game played by political writers and commentators for years. They are constantly looking at the new crop of office holders and wondering which of them has a bright future in the arena. Is there a future governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general in the mix? One of these future "comers" is State Sen. Bradley Byrne, R, Baldwin County. You may not know much about him…but you are about to learn a lot. Byrne is about to take on a most challenging assignment…by an 8-1 vote he was hired as the new chancellor of the troubled-two year colleges in Alabama. It could be a make or break opportunity for his career. Byrne brings a lot to the table. For one, he is most impressive in appearance… he is an honors graduate from Duke University and the University of Alabama Law School…he has a successful law practice in Mobile. On paper, he seems to have a lot going for him. This relatively unknown state senator is about to become a most watched official and how well he peforms in his new assignment will determine how far he might go in the future.
Bob Ingram has been covering Alabama politics for over 50 years.
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