If you watch the evening news tonight, this is the picture you are likely to see, a photo of a Kincaid for Mayor sign on top of a burned out home in Council District 2. But here’s the kicker: It was distributed to the media by Mayor Bernard Kincaid. If you’re waiting for the clever twist, there is none, except that it is the first campaign gaffe of this election year.
Here’s the story.
A few weeks ago, Councilor Carol Duncan (the councilor formerly known as Reynolds) finds a Kincaid campaign sign in the city right of way, she says. This was odd, as the mayor has made many public pronouncements against the practice. The usual sound byte from him is that “you can’t be the chief lawmaker by first being a law breaker.”
Duncan doesn’t like the mayor much anymore. She helped him campaign once, but since then their relationship has soured. Several years ago she was bargaining for a seat on the airport authority. The mayor taped a voice mail she left for him and played it for the media. His point was that Duncan was practicing political extortion, but to the press and just about everyone else, it appeared that Kincaid had lost his cool and pulled a juvenile political prank on the councilor. (Keep all this in your head, because we’ll be coming back to it shortly.) Many folks at City Hall, including some of his own staffers recognize the stunt as one of Kincaid’s worst mistakes: He took an eager ally and turned her into an enemy.
Since then, Duncan and Kincaid have often been at odds, culminating last year when he removed her from the airport board, a seat she prized since the airport is in her district. Instead, he gave the seat to Steven Hoyt. Duncan vowed then to work against the mayor this election.
And then she finds his sign in the city right of way.
According to Duncan, she picked up the sign and placed it on top of the burnt out heap of a house you see in the picture. She says that she reported the house, on 73 Street and Oporto Madrid Boulevard, for demolition and removal more than two years ago. The mayor had done nothing about it.
The sign sat perched atop the burnt house for about a week, she says. Last Thursday she took the sign to City Hall and placed it next to the mayor’s car in the basement parking area. She asked her assistant to email the mayor about the sign. Tuesday afternoon, she showed me the email her assistant had sent as well as a reply from the mayor, thanking her.
Then comes Tuesday. During the mayor’s comments at the beginning of the City Council meeting, he tears into Duncan for putting the sign on top of the house. He then accuses her of putting his signs in the basement. To many of those present, including Councilor Duncan, it wasn’t clear what basement he was talking about. Many thought he meant the basement of the burned out house in the picture. They get into a shouting match, in which she calls him a liar .
But we’re not done yet.
Before the media in his after-council press conference, Kincaid produces still frames from the parking garage security tape showing Duncan removing the sign from her car, putting it next to his car and then leaving the garage.
Kincaid tried to insinuate that there was something untoward happening, but what was truly amazing is that the mayor didn’t seem to hear the echo of the tape-playing incident from six years ago. He took what was a largely unnoticed bush league political stunt by a city councilor and turned it into a lead story for the evening news, replete with a photo of his campaign sign on top of neighborhood blight.
If he had only worn his old “Mayor” baseball cap, it could have been the perfect gaffe.
— Kyle Whitmire
Popularity: 5% [?]
August 28th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Good God — what a bunch of children! No wonder Birmingham can’t move forward.
August 28th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
I applaud Mrs. Duncan for doing what she did to Kincade. I continue to tell everyone that Kincade must be in love with abandoned houses in Birmingham because he will not tear them down and replace these homes with new homes bringing people into the city. Kincade is an imbarassment to the city and I cannot wait until Oct. 9 when the citizens of Birmingham will be giving him the pink slip. Cooper and Langford will be in the run-off and Cooper will win because residents in this town including myself want to see someone new at city hall. I hope more people will realize this. Kincade is moving this city backwards, and now it’s time to move forward. Kathy your are correct about them acting like children, but at least Mrs. Duncan called out Kincade while other council members watch this administration do nothing. I wish the other councilors addressed the abandoned house issue, but their just like Kincade their backward thinkers. This year Cooper will win the mayor’s race and 2008 we are cleaning house with the city council, except Mrs. Duncan she had the courage to call out Mayor Do Nothing A.K.A Mayor abandoned house/population loser/no development/pro-crime/fire and police hater/. I also hope when Cooper become mayor of Birmingham he will burn up that stupid Mayor’s cap that Kincade proudly wears.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Kindergarten politics… How embarrassing. Just like 6 years ago, when the tape played, Mayor Kincaid and Councilor Duncan (formally Reynolds) thoughtlessly wasted council time on personal conflict. A tyrannical mayor and a screaming banshee councilor are not interested in city business. They are so self obsessed that they believe petty grandstanding is more important. The both acted as if their elected positions made them King of the Hill and they could demand respect; but respect is always earned. The playground brawl during Council yesterday earned nothing more than another black eye for Birmingham City Government. No wonder surrounding municipalities avoid us like the plague.
As Birmingham citizens, we should be ashamed that we continue to avoid our responsibility as voters. Tuesday’s performance painfully reminds us of what happens when we ignore our civic duty on Election Day. Now more than ever, we need mature, dedicated representatives to lead our city. This means, on October 9th, Birmingham needs to speak up at the polls. If we keep playing games, our city will continue to be a feeding ground for greedy, deceitful, superfluous, and pretentious wanna be politicians. Grow up, this is real life. We don’t have time for kindergarten politics.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Duncan has done nothing but grandstand during her 2 terms in office. District 2 has seen little change for the better. Duncan refuses to be a part of or even speak to the community unless it is on HER terms. She is just as bad as Kincaid.
Her sell outs to Wal-Mart cost small businesses (she vowed to protect) in the eastern area their existence and the city at large millions in lost tax revenues. Every time she gets a hold of an issue that is brought by a citizen she is condescending, cast blame on everyone else, then rants with highfalutin pomposity - numerating the times she has gone to bat for the issue. But no resolution comes. I am tired of her stating she cannot speak up and things must be done in secret.
Even stranger was in May, at a neighborhood meeting, I heard her call Kincaid “Your Honor” for the better part of 1 hour. She did everything BUT kiss his ass. In the same breath, she was extremely rude to residents, calling out to one elderly participate by name and telling her to “hush for now and I will get to you in a minute”. Duncan was not even supposed to be speaking to the group. The Mayor had the floor.
If you look closely at District 2, you will find that the general quality of life is worse not better. I give her kudos for doing the sign thing. That was great. But I doubt she thought of that on her own. She isn’t the thinker type, just the one who claims all the credit. I pray District 2 gets an actual voice as representative on the City Council in 2009.