Riley hits a home run with new steel facility
By Staff
Bob Ingram, Capitol Scene
MONTGOMERY — There is simply no way to overstate the significance of the decision by German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp to locate its $3 billion plant in Mobile County.
The company 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. When it's 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, but this was a grand slam 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 in two terms as governor.
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 him yet, but you will soon — Byrne is about to take on a most challenging assignment.
By an 8-1 vote he was hired as the new chancellor of the state's troubled two-year college system. 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, an honors graduate from Duke University and the University of Alabama Law School, and he has a successful law practice in Mobile. On paper, he seems to have a lot going for him.
Byrne tip-toed into the political arena when he was elected to the state Board of Education in the mid-1990s, serving two terms. He was elected to the state Senate in 2002 and re-elected in 2006. Certainly, this experience will serve him well in his new assignment.
No matter, this relatively unknown politician is about to become a most watched official; how well he performs in his new assignment will determine how far he might go in the future.
There were some who thought it was interesting that Riley would recommend a legislator, but there is a slight difference. The moment Byrne becomes chancellor he will resign his seat in the Senate. He will not be a double-dipper.
Pate is now on a campaign to get the state Legislature to pass a bill legalizing electronic bingo at two Greyhound race tracks and tax the proceeds for Medicaid.
To make his point on how much his legislation would generate for Medicaid he held a press conference in Montgomery and brought two suitcases loaded with $100 bills.
One held $200,000 in cash, the other $800,000.
The $200,000 represented what the bill would generate for Medicaid and the $800,000 is the matching funds it would generate from the federal government.
Be sure he was surrounded by a host of armed security. After all, his audience was made up of underpaid newsmen.
You can't be too careful.
