Greene County Democrat

Author: greenecodemocratcom

  • Washington D. C. ‘Big Chair Chess Club’ holds day of fun

    By Sam P.K. Collins
    Special to the NNPA News
    Wire from AllEyesOnDC.com

    chessdc_bwashington
    Ricky Norman, manager of the Big Chair Chess Club (center), shows two youngsters how to play chess during Chess Fun Day at the groups Deanwood location in Washington, D.C.(Ben Washington/AllEyesOnDC.com)

    For young, Black men living in Washington, D.C., the game of chess provides an opportunity to develop critical thinking skills that prove essential in avoiding common pitfalls. It also allows them to revel in each other’s company and enjoy friendly competition.  Last weekend, chess connoisseurs of various ages gathered for an afternoon that included chess matches, trash talking, and exchanges about strategy. The event, touted as “Chess Fun Day” attracted dozens of men from across the D.C. metropolitan area that converged on the Big Chair Chess Club in Northeast, Washington, D.C. for the festivities.
    “We wanted to bring some enlightenment about chess and its history. Our black community should know that it’s something to do,” Ricky Norman, manager of the Big Chair Chess Club, told AllEyesOnDC during the daylong gathering on Saturday, Feb. 27.
    Since its 2003 inception by convict-turned-chess teacher Eugene Brown, the Big Chair Chess Club has been instrumental in helping at-risk District students change their lives for the better. The nonprofit organization’s mantra “[T]hink before you move” draws parallels between navigating the chessboard and making prudent life decisions. Norman said chess can be a tool for self-improvement, helping young people increase discipline and focus.
    “For me, chess can be very personal. I get people who come in [the Big Chair Chess Club] and want to compare themselves to others. It’s about doing the best you can and improving. Some people say chess makes you think. I say that this game gives you an opportunity to think. That’s when the epiphany comes,” said Norman, a 54-year-old Northeast resident.
    Since chess Grandmaster champion Bobby Fischer popularized the game in the 1950s, people of various ages around the world have taken to the chessboard at home, in school, recreation centers, and during tournaments. Research has confirmed the benefits of playing chess, including brain stimulation, prevention of Alzheimer’s, and an increase in problem-solving skills.
    Under the direction of the Big Chair Chess Club, students from Kimball Elementary School in Southeast have won seven city championships. School administrators also noted behavioral changes in students who participated in the extracurricular program. Years later, Norman and his colleagues are carrying on that legacy from the confines of Big Chair Chess Club’s Deanwood-based abode.
    Throughout much of Saturday afternoon, men occupying the chess boards in the clubhouse stared attentively at the white and black pieces as old school R&B tunes blared from loudspeakers. Shortly after stepping through the doors of the Big Chair Chess Club, guests watched ongoing matches while nibbling on snacks and chatting amongst one another. Photos of historic and contemporary black figures lined the walls. Stacks of the instructional material also sat on wooden tables.
    For Germantown, Maryland resident James Washington, Chess Fun Day would be an experience for the entire family. That afternoon, he and his wife watched as Norman showed his grandchildren how to move each of the pieces on the board. His son Ben, an ardent chess player, gleefully recorded the short session.
    “My grandchildren been exposed to chess at home before but it’s great to see how enthusiastic they are playing with a professional. Even though they may not know all of the rules, they’re blessed with the basics,” said Washington, 60. “Everyone has to deal with the game of chess at their own level. It’s the same thing with life. The children need to deal with what they can understand and grasp it so they can progress. It’s all about the decisions you need to make for your next steps.”
    Local chess coach and the longtime Big Chair Chess Club member Doc said learning the game opened up many doors for him in his social and professional life. Since Brown taught him chess at Kimball more than a decade ago, Doc has imparted his knowledge on young black men seeking mentorship.
    “I often see students who don’t want to play sports but love chess. Some of them get proactive, picking up books from the library. They get excited about the game and don’t want to lose,” Doc, a chess coach at Eagle Academy Charter School in Congress Heights and Washington Yu Ying Charter School, a Chinese immersion center near the National Cathedral in Northwest, told AllEyesOnDC.
    “In this game, they get the mental challenge they don’t receive in school. This is where they learn life lessons including outlining and contingency planning. I see what the game does and the type of people it attracts. It takes a lot of mental fortitude to play an hour and a half of chess,” Doc added.
    Anthony Womack, a chess player of eight years and one of the organizers for the event, shared similar thoughts. He revealed his plans to introduce chess to his students after watching “Life of King,” a movie about Brown starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. On Saturday afternoon, he played several games of chess and chatted with elders about their life experiences.
    “I just wanted to feel the spirit and ambiance of being around other chess players. This game is a meeting of the minds,” said Womack, founder of MisUnderstood, a Halifax, Virginia-based life skills training program for young men. “No matter what’s going on in life, amazing things happen when you push those pieces on the board. Folks say black people don’t play chess and it’s a challenge but I learned a lot from the game.”
    Womack continued: “After playing, I understood that you have to be prepared to move with life’s changes and pick up a new strategy.”

  • Black Lawyer argues Mississippi’s flag represents racial discrimination; battle over Confederate flag continues

    By Lawyers Herald Staff Writer

    State of Miss flag

    Mississippi state flag which includes the Confederate flag.

    Voters will decide whether to replace the state’s old flag, which sports the Confederate battle cross, with a new flag that would have 20 white stars on a blue square. A Mississippi lawyer sued Governor Phil Bryant for flying the state flag, an emblem tantamount to hateful government speech against himself and African American residents of Mississippi’s rights.Carlos Moore alleged that the current flag contains a Confederate emblem with a racial discriminatory purpose to subjugate African-Americans to second class status and promote the notion of white supremacy. Thus, his constitutional rights have been violated along with all African American citizens of the state.
    Moore stated in his complaint, which was lodged before the jurisdiction of Southern Mississippi U.S. District Court, that time is of the essence for the removal of the current state flag from all public display on public lands and adoption of a non-discriminatory state flag. He also emphasized that there was a recent mass killing by a young white supremacist who was a Confederate battle flag sympathizer and militant. Mississippi is the only state that incorporates the Confederate emblem flag into its state flag.
    Moore said that he invoked some of the same language from the Obergefell v. Hodges case, which the U.S. Supreme Court solidified to legalize same-sex marriage nationally.
    “Such case is the law of the land, and if it applies to same-sex couples, and they’ve got the right to be respected; surely African Americans have the right to be respected too,” Moore said in an interview.
    However, Republican Bryant, who recently issued a proclamation naming April as Confederate Heritage Month, has said voters should decide whether to keep the flag used since 1894.
    He said that he will rely on a landmark case filed in the mid-1990s in Georgia. A black resident of Atlanta sued over the design of Georgia’s flag, which then displayed the same Confederate battle emblem that’s still on the Mississippi banner.
    In such lawsuit, it argued that the flag was racist because the Confederate emblem was added in 1956 to defy school desegregation rulings. U.S. District Judge Orinda D. Evans ruled in January 1996 that she would not make Georgia stop flying its flag because: “There simply is no evidence in the record indicating that the flag itself results in discrimination against African-Americans.”
    In a report by The Oregonian, House Speaker Tina Kotek stated, “After attempting again this week to reach out to leadership in both the Mississippi House and Senate, I now believe it is time for us to act. We should remove the Mississippi flag.”
    Constitutional law expert Matt Steffey said that there are some issues with Moore’s legal claims.
    “The 14th Amendment is not usually read to be concerned with symbolic matters, and the flag is by definition a symbol,” Steffey said. “And while the lawsuit attempts to tie this to violence, at least in a courtroom, there’s no way to establish that.”

  • Seven lead-poisoned families file Flint class action lawsuit

    by TRACY CONNOR

    Flint children

    The children of the Ligthfoot family of Flint who are suffering from lead poisoning from the water.

    mayor

    Mayor Karen Weaver of Flint says she will not rest until the lead corroded pipes in Flint are replaced.

    Flint mom Melissa Lightfoot says her youngest child, Payton, is one of the top students in her kindergarten class, but she is “so scared that could all change next year.”That’s because the 5-year-old — along with her two older siblings — was found to have high lead levels in her blood after the Michigan city switched to a more corrosive water source in 2015.
    The little girl described by her mom as the “diva of the family” has since been diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder, just like 8-year-old sister Kamryn and 13-year-old brother Tra’Vaughn.
    “This is real,” Lightfoot, 33, told NBC News on Sunday. “This right here is scary.”   Lightfoot’s family is one of seven who filed a class action lawsuit on Monday, seeking to hold a raft of city and state officials responsible for the lead-poisoning crisis that has made Flint into a symbol of government failure and environmental disaster.
    The federal suit, filed under the Safe Water and Lead-Free Water Acts, is the latest in a tide of litigation spawned by the crisis.
    Lawyers will ask the courts to certify a class action that would cover any Flint kids who were poisoned when water from the Flint River corroded aging pipes and leached lead into the system.
    Lightfoot said that before the city changed water sources, her children were tested for lead and were not found to be in danger. But by late 2014, their levels were above 5 micrograms per deciliter, which shows an alarming level of exposure.
    Doctors initially assumed it was from paint, but Lightfoot lives in Section 8 housing that was certified lead-free, she said. After several retests, she said, her pediatrician told her, “It could be the water.”
    “I was scared,” Lightfoot said. “My kids are getting poisoned from something that’s a necessity and as a parent there’s nothing I can do to help them. It’s already in them, I can’t take it out, and there’s no medicine for it.”
    Lightfoot — who now uses bottled water even for bathing — said she has seen her children’s behavior deteriorate since their elevated lead levels were discovered; their attention drifts and they’re prone to fits of anger. The girls suffered hair loss, and Kamryn developed rashes.
    “I’m constantly at a doctor’s office,” she said. “If it’s not a doctor’s office, it’s an appointment for therapy, because of this lead being in my kids.”
    Of the three children, Payton had the highest level, close to 8 micrograms per deciliter. But lawyers said one of the other plaintiffs in the suit tested as high as 30.
    “Lead poisoning is an insidious disease,” said one of the attorneys, Hunter Shkolnik. “We know the brain is permanently and irreversibly damaged but it doesn’t manifest itself immediately. These children have been pushed so far down now they cannot ever achieve what was expected of them.
    “What we’re trying to do here is get action and get action quick,” he added. “There are many more children in the community who need attention. It cannot wait any longer.”
    Another lawyer, Adam Slater, said the suit will attempt to “hold accountable” those responsible for changing Flint’s water source, failing to take steps to control corrosion, reassuring the public the water was safe to drink, and failing to heed early warnings that it was not.
    The Flint city attorney and Michigan state attorney general declined to comment on pending litigation. To proceed, the plaintiffs will have to show why the city and state are not covered by governmental immunity.
    The class action also names engineering firm Lockwood, Andrews and Newman, which was hired by Flint before the switch. The company said in a statement that its work was of “limited scope” and that the decision not to use corrosion control was made by the government and not its engineers.
    Although the city has changed back to its old water supply and is taking steps to control the lead, Lightfoot said her trust has been permanently broken, and her peace of mind shattered by uncertainty.
    “I don’t know how the rest of my kids’ lives are going to play out because of how high their lead levels are,” she said.
    “Now I just want to get my kids out of Flint.”

  • 51st anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday March’ draws thousands to Selma

    Edmund pb

    “This is not only a celebration and commemoration of the past but a continuation of the movement and a statement of the struggle for racial, social, political and economic justice that still face us,” said Faya Rose Toure on Sunday at the pre-march rally on the steps of Browns Chapel Church in Selma, Alabama.
    There were 40 events during the March 3-7 weekend that comprise the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the marches on Bloody Sunday and subsequent marches in 1965 which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.There was a Saturday breakfast to honor footsoldiers of the movement, a parade, a beauty pageant, a Sunday Unity Breakfast, Freedom Flame Banquet, golf tournament, numerous workshops and presentations on history and current struggles. At the Unity Breakfast, Congresswomen Terri Sewell presented a replica of the Footsoldiers Gold Medal, recently awarded by Congress to participants in the 1965 marches, to Hank and Faya Rose Sanders. The Sanders have developed the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and Museum over the past three decades to help people to understand the history of the voting rights struggle in America and continue to work to preserve these basic democratic rights for all people. They said they would place the medal on exhibit in the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma.
    Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina was the keynote speaker at the Unity Breakfast. Clyburn said, “If we fail to learn the lessons of history, then they will repeat. We are seeing some similarities now in our Presidential election to the elections in Germany in 1932, when a demagogue was first elected to office and then became a fascist dictator.”
    “Things that happened before can happen again. Things do not happen in a linear fashion. They go one way and then swing back another way. The people must be ready to intervene and participate in the process.
    “Last year, we were here with a bi-partisan group of 100 Congress people and the President for the Fiftieth Anniversary but the Voting Rights Advancement Act has not had a hearing and not moved one inch since last year. People will show up for the celebration but not the work,” said Clyburn.
    He urged the audience especially young people, not to give up. “Most of us have a resume which lists only the things that went right – not the times that things didn’t go as planned.
    I ran for Congress, three times and lost. I did not win until the fourth time. Many people said three strikes and you’re out, but those are baseball rules. There are no numerical limits on trying in life,” said Clyburn.
    The names of many young Black people killed by police in the past year came up as rallying calls for actions at various times during the weekend. The case of Gregory Gunn who was shot five times, last month, by police in Montgomery was mentioned in the criminal justice workshops. Rev. Kenneth Glascow of The Ordinary People’s Organization (TOPS) introduced the mothers of Christopher Jerome Thomas of Dothan, Alabama and Cameron Massey of Eufala, Alabama. Glascow led a “backwards march” across the bridge, before the larger march, to call attention to the inequities in the justice system and the unresolved pending cases of police violence and misconduct toward Black people.
    In a Saturday workshop at the Center for Non-violence, Truth and Reconciliation, the speaker was Bryant Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative. He spoke about his life experience of working to represent and exonerate prisoners on death row in Alabama. He equated the current killing of young Black men with the prior era of lynching in the South between Reconstruction and the end of World War II. He said over 400 Black people were lynched around the South. His organization is in the process of placing historical markers at the places where these lynchings occurred.
    On Sunday afternoon about 10,000 marchers, including a large contingent of members from Alabama Masonic Lodges and their auxiliaries participated in the reenactment march from Browns Chapel Church through Selma and across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. A post march rally was held in the Memorial Park on the east side of the bridge.

  • No breakthrough in Supreme Court dispute between Obama, Republicans

    By Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters

    U.S. President Obama meets with the bipartisan leaders of the Senate to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Scalia, at the White House in Washington
    U.S. President Barack Obama (3rd R) meets with the bipartisan leaders of the Senate to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, at the White House in Washington March 1, 2016. From L-R: Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Vice President Joe Biden, Obama, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA). REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

    U.S. President Barack Obama (3rd R) meets with the bipartisan leaders of the Senate to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, at the White House in Washington March 1, 2016.

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican leaders of the Senate on Tuesday rebuffed President Barack Obama’s appeal for hearings and a vote on his U.S. Supreme Court nominee during a face-to-face meeting that failed to budge them from their vow to block any nominee he offers.
    Obama, planning to name a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia in the coming weeks, huddled with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley in the White House Oval Office for less than an hour.”Senator Grassley and I made it clear that we don’t intend to take up a nominee or to have a hearing,” McConnell told reporters after the meeting.
    The meeting failed to produce any progress on how to proceed with finding a replacement for Scalia, a long-serving conservative justice who died on Feb. 13.
    McConnell and Grassley are insistent that Obama not pick a nominee and leave the decision to his successor, who takes office next January after the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. Obama is insistent that it is the Republican-led Senate’s constitutional duty to act on his nominee.
    “They made clear in their meeting with the president that they’re not going to change their mind just because the president says so,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said of the Republicans.

  • Donald Trump refuses to disavow support from David Duke, ex head of Ku Klux Klan

    By: Adam Rosenberg, Mashable

    “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists,” an apparently confused Trump told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union.
    “I don’t know… did he endorse me? Or what’s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists.”Tapper tried three times to get comment from Trump on Duke’s recent support of his presidential bid, and was stonewalled each time. The would-be Republican nominee wants to “look at the group” before passing judgment.
    “You wouldn’t want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about,” Trump said. “If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on them and certainly I would disavow if I thought there was something wrong.”
    Tapper fired back, expressing disbelief that Trump would be unfamiliar with such a public figure or the hate group he once represented. “I’m just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here, but—”
    Trump interjected before he could finish: “Honestly, I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I’ve ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.”
    Tapper’s line of questioning came in response to Duke’s comments on Feb. 25 that a vote against Trump is “treason to your heritage.”
    “I’m not saying I endorse everything about Trump,” Duke said on Thursday. “In fact, I haven’t formally endorsed him. But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do.”
    Trump’s refusal to distance himself from Duke during his chat with Tapper is odd, given that he did so already during a Friday news conference in Texas (via Buzzfeed). “I didn’t even know he endorsed me,” Trump said at the time. “David Duke endorsed me? I disavow, okay?”
    Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio had some choice words to share on Trump’s CNN appearance, and his unwillingness to distance himself from Duke.
    “Not only is that wrong, it makes him unelectable,” Rubio said Sunday at a capacity crowd in Purcellville, Virginia. “How are we going to grow our party when we have a nominee who wont repudiate the Ku Klux Klan?”
    Rubio added that Trump was lying when he said he didn’t know who Duke is.
    In a subsequent statement from Trump’s campaign office, Trump asserted that his earpiece was working properly during the CNN interview with Jake Tapper.

  • Gov. Robert Bentley signs bill to block city minimum wages, voiding Birmingham ordinance

    Written with assistance from AL.Com

    A bill to block Alabama cities from setting their own minimum wages is now law. Gov. Robert Bentley signed the bill,
    Thursday, February 25, soon after the Alabama Senate passed the bill by 23-11.
    The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to raise the minimum to $10.10 an hour, moving the effective date up from an ordinance passed earlier.
    The bill’s passage voids the ordinance passed in Birmingham, according to the city’s legal department. “It certainly is unfortunate and, if it stands up, it is a loss for those who deserve to earn a livable wage in the city of Birmingham and, for that matter, the state of Alabama,” Council President Johnathan Austin said. “But the state obviously disagrees.”
    Birmingham officials have not yet said what, if any, recourse the city has. “We will continue to work together to stand and fight for our citizens,” Austin said.
    The Legislature has the authority to preempt local ordinances, even those that are already in effect, said Mike Lewis, spokesman for Attorney General Luther Strange. Lewis was not commenting specifically on the minimum wage bill.
    The Republican super majorities in the House and Senate put the bill on the fast-track as the Birmingham City Council raced to enact its minimum wage. Other cities in Alabama including Tuscaloosa, Huntsville and Mobile were considering following Birmingham in raising the minimum wage in their areas.
    Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, sponsor of the legislation, said the state needs to maintain a uniform minimum and that Birmingham businesses were not given adequate notice for the change.
    The Senate passed the bill after Democratic senators spoke in opposition to the measure for about three and a half hours.  The Senate voted 22-11 to cut off debate before passing the bill Thursday afternoon.
    The governor’s office sent out an email saying that the governor had signed the bill less than an hour after it passed.
    The vote was mostly along party lines, but not entirely.
    Republican Sens. Paul Bussman of Cullman and Bill Holtzclaw of Madison are listed as no votes on the Legislature’s website.
    All eight Democratic senators voted against the bill. They condemned it as an effort to encroach on local authority and a move that would hurt workers struggling to make ends meet.
    “When you lift a person on the bottom, everybody above them is lifted up,” Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham said.
    Alabama does not have its own minimum wage, so employers follow the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, last raised in 2009.
    Senator Hank Sanders devotes his “Senate Sketches” column this week (see page 6) to explaining his position in support of raising the minimum wage and against the legislation passed by the Republican majority.
    “Everything has gone up,” Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison said. “Yet we don’t feel that the working poor deserves a break.” Coleman-Madison has proposed a constitutional amendment that would raise the minimum statewide to $10 by 2018.
    Republican lawmakers supporting the anti-minimum wage bill said it would force employers to eliminate jobs, reduce hours or raise costs on customers to absorb the increased labor costs.
    “I can promise you employment will go downhill,” said Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, who carried the bill in the Senate.
    Austin said he appreciates the support the city council’s efforts have received from many members of the Jefferson County legislative delegation in both the House and Senate.
    Joe Keffer, who has advocated for higher minimum wages as part of Raise Up Alabama and the SOS Coalition for Justice and Democracy, disputed assertions that raising the minimum eliminates jobs.
    Keffer said workers who benefit from a minimum wage increase, spend the extra money within the community, boosting local economies.
    Keffer said it’s wrong for lawmakers to stand in the way of higher minimum wages in Birmingham and other cities because of the state’s high levels of poverty. “What they’re saying is we think business interests are more important than interests of people in these cities,” Keffer said.
    Ken Smith, executive director of the Alabama League of Municipalities, said the league did not take a position on the legislation. Smith said that league members were on both sides of the issue.
    The bill also prohibits counties from enacting minimum wages, but counties already lacked that authority, said Sonny Brasfield, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama.

  • Clinton and Trump win Alabama and Greene County; Zippert elected to Greene County School Board – District 1; Runoff in District 2 – Madelyn Thomas and Kashaya Cockrell

    Hillary Clinton, Gregory Griggers, Carol P. Zippert, Madelyn Thomas, Kashaya Cockrell

    Yesterday on “Super Tuesday” in the Democratic Primary election, Hillary Clinton led the state with 309,928 (78%) to Bernie Sanders with 76,399 (19%). In Greene County, Clinton garnered 2716 (90%) votes to 213 for Bernie Sanders (7%).
    In the Republican Primary, Donald J. Trump led the field with 371,735 (43%) of the votes. Cruz was a distant second with 180,608 (21%), Rubio with 159,802 (19%), Carson 87,517 (10%) and Kasich 37,500 (4%) rounded out the field.
    In Greene County, Trump led as well with 147 (54%) of the total 273 Republican votes cast in the primary.
    In the 17th Judicial Circuit District Attorney contest that serves three counties – Greene, Marengo and Sumter, incumbent Gregory Griggers was reelected with 6,873 (56.5%) votes to 5,281 (43.5%) for Barrown Lankster. Griggers carried all three counties. In Greene County, Griggers received 1439 votes to 1237 for Lankster.
    Carol P. Zippert was elected to the Greene County Board of Education in District 1. Zippert received 376 (62%) of the votes to 235 (38%) for challenger Kiasha Underwood Lavender. Zippert carried the Courthouse, Mantua Knoxville and the Absentee Box. Lavender led in Union and Jena precincts.
    In District 2, for the Greene County School Board there was a five person race which resulted in a run-off between Madelyn Thomas with 138 (27.7%) votes and Kashaya Cockrell with 113 (22.7%). Latoya “Mimi” Pelt received 102 (20.5%), Brandon Meriwether 76 (15.3%) and Robert “Coach” Kimbrough 69 (13.8%). The run-off is scheduled for Tuesday, April 12, 2016.
    In the race for U. S. Senator, incumbent Richard Shelby was nominated in the Republican primary and Ron Crumpton was nominated over Charles Nana in the Democratic primary.
    In the vote on the Constitutional Amendment to allow district attorneys and circuit clerks to participate in the state retirement system, it was passed in Greene County by a vote of 2,254 (82%) for; 492 (18%) against. Statewide this amendment was approved 679,956 (63%) to 402,060 (37%).

  • $239.987.12 distribution in Bingo

    On Monday, March 2, 2016, Greene County Sheriff Jonathan Benison distributed $239,987.12 in bingo allocations from the four licensed gaming operations in the county. This distribution represented the January assessment 2016 payment.
    The sheriff’s Bingo Rules and Regulations direct each licensed facility to distribute approximately $60,000 per month to the particular entities also determined by the sheriff. The recipients of the monthly distributions from bingo gaming designated by Sheriff Benison in his Bingo Rules and Regulations include the Greene County Commission, the Greene County Sheriff’s Department, the cities of Eutaw, Forkland, Union and Boligee and the Greene County Board of Education.
    Sheriff Benison continues to withhold the Greene County Commission’s bingo allocation, which would total approximately $96,000 per month.  The Commission has not received its bingo payments from the sheriff since May 2015.
    Green Charity (Center for Rural Family Development) gave a total of $60,000 to the following: Greene County Commission, $24,000; Greene County Sheriff’s Department, $9,000; City of Eutaw, $4,500; and the Towns of Forkland, Union and Boligee each, $3,000; Greene County Board of Education, $13,500.
    Greenetrack, Inc gave a total of $59,987.12 to the following: Greene County Commission, $23,994.84; Greene County Sheriff’s Department, $8,998.07; City of Eutaw, $4,499.03; Towns of Forkland, Union and Boligee each, $2,999.36; Greene County Board of Education, $13,497.10.
    Frontier (Dream, Inc.) gave a total of $60,000 to the following: Greene County Commission, $24,000; Greene County Sheriff’s Department, $9,000; City of Eutaw, 4,500; Towns of Forkland, Union $3,000 and Greene County Board of Education, $13,500.
    Rivers Edge (YAPO) gave a total of $60,000 to the following: Greene County Commission, $24,000; Greene County Sheriff’s Department, $9,000; City of Eutaw, $4,500; Towns of Forkland, Union and Boligee each $3,000; and Greene County Board of Education,13,500.

  • Sheriff Benison amends bingo rules to provide Greene Co. Hospital with 4% of monies paid by bingo operators to machine vendors

    Greene County Sheriff, Jonathan Benison, who is solely in charge of electronic bingo operations, under Constitutional Amendment 743, amended his bingo regulations, effective June 2nd, to provide the Greene County Hospital with 4% of the revenues paid by the four bingo operators to vendors for machines and/or softwear.
    The Democrat contacted the Sheriff’s office to determine the amount of money this will generate for the hospital. A spokesperson for the Sheriff said this new regulation would generate $20,000 to $25,000 a month for support of the Greene County Hospital. This amount would meet a request that the Hospital has been making to the Sheriff for over two years to be included in the allocation of bingo funds.
    In the amendment to the bingo rules, Sheriff Benison says that it is “standard practice in the industry to pay vendors (those who supply machines and/or softwear) a percentage of their net gross revenues; and further that all bingo operator and/or charities operating bingo in Greene County, Alabama shall henceforth deduct and pay to the Greene County Hospital an amount equal of 4% of the amounts paid to vendors.”
    The amendment instructs the bingo operators to pay this 4% of the vendor’s amount, directly to the Greene County Hospital, at the same regular interval – weekly, monthly, yearly – that they pay to the vendors.
    In his amendment, the Sheriff points out that “ the vendors provide a valued service but also that they reap the rewards of Constitutional Amendment 743, as provided through the efforts and protection of the Greene County Sheriff’s Department.“Luther Winn Jr., CEO of Greenetrack said this amendment would interfere with the contracts that he has in place with Greenetrack’s machine vendors. He informed the Democrat that he is not favorable to this amendment and will discuss its negative implication’s to his business with the Sheriff. The Democrat tried but was not able to reach other bingo operators and charities, for their opinions on the new amendment, prior to press time.
    Winn said he was expanding the number of machines at Greenetrack to the 500 required by the Sheriff and suggested that it would have been better to fund support for the Greene County Hospital through a portion of the new fee revenues, from the additional machines, than from this 4% charge to the vendors.
    Elmore Patterson, CEO of the Greene County Health System, which includes the hospital, residential care center, physicians clinic, home health and other services, said “I am pleased to see the Sheriff has included healthcare for Greene County citizens in his plans for allocating resources from bingo operations in Greene County, under Constitutional Amendment 743. These funds will help close the gap in providing care for low income people in Greene County, many of whom cannot afford to pay for quality health care that they need.”