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Ep 3: Welcome to Camp Hill part 2 image

Ep 3: Welcome to Camp Hill part 2

E3 · If It Ain't Fixed Don't Break It
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35 Plays1 month ago

Gentrification, a suspicious state rep, and a mayor's livestream make an appearance on the final part of Welcome to Camp Hill. It's a ride y'all!

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Transcript

Introduction and Episode Overview

00:00:00
Speaker
You know, we always say help is on the way, but help don't get here. Listen, this is not government. This is religion here. Lord have mercy. This building is a piece of garbage. Ain't nobody happy just to be in here. We ain't here trying to do work. ain't right. It ain't right. I don't see this moving Alabama for. As Rick and Bobby say, if you ain't first, you're last. If it ain't this. Boy. Don't think we should break Break it down. I'll break it. How do we break it down even more? Everybody's thinking they are doing the right thing. This is not the right thing to do. I want this fixed today.
00:00:32
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of If It Ain't Fixed, Don't Break It. I'm Zephyr Scalzetti. I'm Faye Hobbs. And today we are talking about Camp Hill ah Part 2. Welcome to Camp Hill.
00:00:43
Speaker
We are going to talk today about gentrification, about a dispute between Dadeville and Camp Hill. about the water and the lawsuit that's come out of that, which has gotten pretty juicy. um that's That's not even me saying it. That's a direct quote from the mayor. He said it's gotten pretty juicy or this is where the facts get juicy. And we're gonna we're going to listen to some audio clips. or We're going to have a good old time. So I know last week was was a bit heavy. um We will be touching on a couple heavy notes on this episode, not nearly to the same extent that we did um in last episode. And just like last episode, we're going to end on a high note.
00:01:20
Speaker
I really should think of a better phrase than high note because that feels like I'm stealing from one of my favorite podcasts, Knowledge Fight. What if we did to high step because high stepper is our top our our our top tier of patron? That's that's possible. that That's very possible. But speaking of our patrons, Faye, could you ah thank our patrons for making the show possible? I would be happy to because we do have several new patrons at the Soapbox level. We have Olino and Kelly Hathcock.
00:01:46
Speaker
At the Floribama man level, we have James Mayer and Bill Hathcock. And we even have a high stepper this week, ah Violin Zetti. So thank you all so much for contributing. If I was able to get the drops done in time, you should hear like a unique drop behind each one. But if you didn't, um I will rethink y'all when I get those drops done. um And we'll have like a fun little soundtrack for each level. But thank you all so much.

Historical Context of Lake Martin and Displacement

00:02:13
Speaker
And so let's get into it. Gentrification and Lake Martin.
00:02:23
Speaker
Under every massive public works project in America is a black town that got flooded, demolished, condemned, or otherwise seized. Lake Martin is no different. Hey, Faye, have you ever heard of the town of Benson or Coliga?
00:02:36
Speaker
I have not heard of either of these. So Lake Martin is a man-made lake. um And to be clear, I had never heard of them either. I just, I know that under every massive public works works project is usually a black town that got screwed over. So I went looking and I found um the town of Benson.
00:02:53
Speaker
So we're back in, what are we, eastern Alabama? East Central Alabama? Central Alabama is usually how it's classified, yeah. Well, Central Alabama or Birmingham. Well, East Alabama is the name of the hospital, so let's go East. So we're we're in we're in, you know, eastern Alabama.
00:03:08
Speaker
um Lake Martin is a really popular lake. we' We're going to talk about the gentrification of the area. It's a man-made lake. It was created by damning the Talapusa River. So in 1926, Alabama Power, who's the people who who spearheaded um this, And at the time, by the way, that dam, I believe, was the largest dam in the U.S., or one of the largest. So this was a massive project. So in 1926, Alabama Power floods the town of Benson, which was a prosperous black community, and wipes it off the map.
00:03:37
Speaker
Joshua Darin made an excellent short video on the town of Benson that I'll link in the show notes. But in brief, Will Benson incorporated the Caliga, and I'm pronouncing it Caliga. I don't actually know if that's correct, but that's how Joshua ah pronounced it, and that was the only question.
00:03:51
Speaker
audio I could find of somebody saying the the word it's spelled K-O-W-A-L-I-G-A. So ah Will Benson incorporated the Kaliga Academic and Industrial Institute in 1897. And I'm using alabamaheritage.com as the source for the following. They have a very in-depth blog on the town that's also listed in in the show notes.
00:04:12
Speaker
Over a period of 30 years, hundreds of rural black children from across the area received their schooling at Cowalaga. At its height, Cowalaga School and its related Dixie Industrial Company controlled more than 10,000 acres and included a prosperous cotton and vegetable farm, a cotton gin, and cottonseed oil mill,
00:04:30
Speaker
a general store, a sawmill, and a turpentine distillery. The community reached its crowning achievement with the construction of the Dixie Line, a standard gauge railroad running 15 miles from the school to Alexander City, where it linked to u the central of Georgia.

Economic Endeavors of Displaced Communities

00:04:47
Speaker
A March 1914 article in the Montgomery Advertiser and an account in the New York Times later that year credit the Dixie Line as the first railroad owner the nation conceived, promoted, built, and operated by Negro people.
00:05:00
Speaker
Today, the Dixie Line is also gone. Only a few stretches of raised rail bed near its terminus remain. So to be clear, this is a town that was entirely black owned. All the industry, everything was built from the ground up. There was not like a large endowment, um or at least not a single endowment. Will Benson's father was ah formerly enslaved and worked ah sharecropping and bought the land or the initial land and they grew up from there. So at its height to control 10,000 acres,
00:05:30
Speaker
and what is now Lake Martin and to have their own freaking railroad. You don't generally hear about just a town making a railroad. Usually you hear about it as being like a major like undertaking at the state or even national level. Well, at the time that was more common because there were much more, um there were lots of smaller railroads that that all connected to bigger ones. So we didn't have like the massive,
00:05:57
Speaker
mono Well, I'm flattening railroad history and and please railroad people are are insane. um ah Please don't hate on me. um Although if you have more information on on this railroad, I would be interested in hearing about it.
00:06:09
Speaker
But don't hate on me for flattening railroad history. I'm not getting into that. People like trains and we like to hear from the people who like trains about the trains. It's very cool. About the specific train I'm talking about. Yes, not not. the um but But to bring it back to this, you know, this is this is conceived, promoted, built by the people of Calica and operated by them. and And very specifically, you know, the Montgomery Advertiser nowadays, good newspaper, um New York Times, i have I have my feelings about the Times as a trans person. These are publications that were not very pro-black in 1914. So for them to credit them as as as being this is the first railroad in then in the nation that's built and operated by by um by black folks, that's a really significant achievement.
00:06:59
Speaker
Benson is incorporated in 1897 then it's destroyed in 1926. So like...
00:07:04
Speaker
so like Not even 30 years. So if you think about the timeline, right? 1897, it's founded 1901. That's when the racist constitution gets put in, right? Things get increasingly harder for them. But 1914, they have this this railroad that they're operating and they survive until 1926. This is in the same era as like the Tuskegee Institute.
00:07:28
Speaker
World War I's going on and these guys are like, hey we're going to make a railroad. Well, so because they have industry, right? They need to They need to get those things. So at the time, um I didn't mean to get this this much into it, but but they're producing things, right? They've got cotton, vegetable farms. they have yeah um They've got a sawmill. So the logs, right right now, 280 doesn't exist.
00:07:49
Speaker
It's a backwoods road. And so they're having to drive up. physically drive up every time they have a load of locks or anything to Alex City distribute. Super dangerous. Exactly. Super bad times have. And that's why put those on a train. Exactly. Have the train hauled. this is this It's not just like we're going to have a railroad. It's a we are an industrial town. a We're trying to be a self-sufficient agricultural and industrial town. We need a way to market our goods. So we need to get it to Alexander City. That's the hub where it's going to connect to Georgia because everything runs on trains at this time.
00:08:21
Speaker
Freight, people, everything. So that's that's what they do. That's why the railroad exists is to facilitate that. Cal Lago was setting up to be a fully self-sufficient and.
00:08:33
Speaker
There are differing accounts as of whether or not it was fully self-sufficient. But yes, that was the the vision of Will Benson. in in creating and trying to facilitate this community.
00:08:48
Speaker
Coming to the modern day

Camp Hill's Financial Struggles and Economic Disparities

00:08:49
Speaker
to look at at Lake Martin today, this area is is a really prosperous area. It's always been fairly popular, but in the last five years, the property values and everything have exploded. The nearest cities are going to be Alexander City, which I think their their tagline is literally Gateway to Lake Martin. It's at least what they have posted on some signs. Right. And then you cross over a bridge over the lake. And then the next two towns are Jackson's Gap and Dadeville.
00:09:15
Speaker
So if you look at 280, right, you're traveling down 280. You have Alexander City. That's the the largest city before you get to Auburn. You've Alexander City. You've got Jackson's Gap. You have Dadeville. And then Camp Hill. That's where we're going with this. Okay.
00:09:27
Speaker
So Camp Hill and Dadeville are only a couple of miles apart. The Dadeville area, um i i was curious as to what the price changes were in housing. Because i I know anecdotally, that the real estate has been going crazy up there, but I wanted to look. So an analysis of Zillow data shows that in Dadeville specifically, the typical home value is $514,000, which surprised me.
00:09:49
Speaker
um And that the five-year price change in home values has, it's doubled. So it five years ago in 2018, you were looking at $175,000 for the same house.
00:10:01
Speaker
So I was curious as to what Zillow was calling Dadeville because the data for the city of Dadeville and their data, there's there's a lot of range there. So you've got, i've I'm seeing a lot of listings for like a million plus and then some for like 60,000. I'm like, what what is going on here?
00:10:19
Speaker
So what Zillow is describing as the Dadeville area is a lot larger than the the city of Dadeville ah parameters And the reason that that there is those million dollar homes included is because the Dadeville area, quote unquote, is is including all of the shoreline along Lake Martin. And this area comes right up to the edge of Camp Hill.
00:10:40
Speaker
Is it this blue area that's circled here? Okay, that is not, that's up against the waterway, but that is not a river, that is just saying, okay, so that they are counting all of that as Dadeville.
00:10:51
Speaker
Right, or the Dadeville area. So that's, when when I'm saying, like, the median home price here is $514,000 or typical home value, that that entire area. And so so to describe this to people who are not looking at this picture that we're looking at, it's sort of like um a hamburger bun. So, like, um there's a hamburger bun of like the lake on top. Camp Hill is like the meat in the middle. And then at the bottom is it's just kind of in the corner, right? That's Auburn. And Auburn has been growing very quickly. And so between these two gentrifying areas, Camp Hill is squished in the middle. So you have this this area that is massively disinvested. The the property values are dog shit.
00:11:33
Speaker
um And then 10 minutes away, you have million dollar homes.
00:11:39
Speaker
financial woes.
00:11:43
Speaker
Camp Hill is not so affluent. The median household income is $30,000. And that's the household income, to be clear. And and most people are not living alone. um So this is this would be a family income of $30,000. I want to talk about what this looks like in practice and some of the financial woes that that Camp Hill has gone through.
00:12:04
Speaker
So um we're going to talk through some articles from like the early aughts to 2019, 2020. Just to to lay out you know some of the things that the town has gone through financially, um I do want to say that this is not an exhaustive, um detailed like list of everything. These are snapshots just so people can have an idea of what the town's ledgers have kind of typically looked like or what they're facing um before we talk about the water crisis in current day. From an Alex City article on December 2000,
00:12:36
Speaker
Residents of this Tallapoosa County town found they were left holding the bag after the community's 600 garbage cans were repossessed. The town couldn't pay its $50,000 bill, a city council member said, so Waste Management Inc. took back the trash bins. Collection crews followed their normal routes through the 1,400 resident town and picked up the trash before stacking the cans in a truck.
00:12:58
Speaker
Lifelong resident Wanda Cox, whose 95-gallon cart was wheeled away after lunch, said she would take her garbage to City Hall. I want some answers, she said. Upset isn't the word.
00:13:09
Speaker
I'm trying to be a church lady tonight. Yeah, when I saw the line about I'm trying to be a church. to be a church lady. That is, i i can picture this interaction in my head.
00:13:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah. No. Just very clearly, yeah. um So things got real bad in 2019. Yeah. The Alex City Outlook published a frankly kind of embarrassing article on September 19th of that year detailing the frustrations of city council members for very understandable reasons. Members of the Camp Hill Town Council were frustrated by the inability to deal with the town's finances, including the possibility of the water being cut off.
00:13:47
Speaker
So first trash, then the water. Well, this is 20 years later. So this is 2019. Trash was in 2000. And there were things in between. Like I skipped right over the IRS and ok there was yeah there's there's stuff.
00:13:59
Speaker
But point is that they're they're having trouble with those bare necessities. Yes, consistently, yeah. That's rough. for the past several months council membersmb have said they are not getting documents related to the town's finances for the council to make decisions the frustration reached epic proportions as members of the camp pill council received notice over the weekend the town's water would be cut off because the past due balance of sixty four thousand dollars to the dadeville water and sewer board if it did not pay seventeen thousand dollars by monday and make subsequent payments on the past due balance going forward.
00:14:30
Speaker
And to be clear, this is happening. That is Monday. They're discussing this and the Monday they're talking about is the day that they're talking about it. Why is the city of Camp Hill paying Dadeville? It's because they purchased water from Dadeville. This is going to be a ah big part of the rest of the episode. We'll get more into that later and why that that's the case.
00:14:46
Speaker
This is the first I'm hearing of this, Councilmember Linda Caldwell said before Monday's meeting was canceled. I'm seeing they have been contacting us since March. Councilmember Dean Bonner said he knew the town was a little behind on the bill, but not this far.
00:15:03
Speaker
I thought we were a couple weeks behind, Bonner said. This has caught me by surprise. Yeah, so that bit right there about that Monday meeting being canceled, That's because they failed to reach a quorum, which is the minimum number of elected officials that have to be present to, you know, have a meeting.
00:15:19
Speaker
And I think quorum is not just about elected officials. Like, I think, like, corporate boards probably quorums, too. Yeah, it's a specific sort of setup. In Battlestar Galactica, they operate off of a quorum of 12.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, you you don't want... Wait, is that just like the council? that that's that's like that That's like the head governing body. Okay, that's not what we mean by this. This is the minimum number of people that need to be in the room for there to be a meeting period. yes Yeah, so... But we thank you for bringing SyFy into this. For reference, or for folks who maybe... First of all, if you you missed last episode, ah why this is part two. um But if you did, um I banned Faye for making further references. That's right. I was going to say Star Wars, but that's what you did in the trailer. Anyway, so back to back to this council meeting. They couldn't reach a quorum because the minimum number of elected officials officials that had to be present, ah they didn't meet it.
00:16:12
Speaker
So who was there? So council members Dean Bonner, Linda Caldwell, and Dwayne Blackwell were there along with the town attorney and the town clerk. Noticeably not present was Mayor Ezell Smith, um which is not a great look when you have 17 grand due that day or the entire town's water is going to get turned off. We are perhaps starting to see why Messiah won the mayor's race despite still being a student, because this is September of 2019 and Messiah wins the runoff, I think, October 6, 2020.
00:16:41
Speaker
twenty twenty Right. So the the following the following October. Yeah, this is not a great look. As somebody who's who's had water shut off before, it's it's not a good situation. Those reactivation fees are terrible. yet You don't want to get behind on on water. And for the whole town to be that far behind and caught off guard, you would think that there would be multiple people who would have seen this and at least made a note to do something

Systemic Financial Issues in Camp Hill

00:17:09
Speaker
about it. But there was clearly some sort of communication or information gap going on here.
00:17:15
Speaker
We're going to get into that um a little bit more. There are a lot more layers to the situation that we find out because of ah the lawsuit, but we're we're going to get into that. ok According to the same out article, the town clerk, Lakeisha Harris, told council members that the $17,000 water payment was already taken care of, along with an additional $5,000 payment. Everybody was...
00:17:34
Speaker
everybody was Very surprised by this because the unapproved minutes and the reason the minutes are unapproved is because you you approve the minutes. That's like one of the first things you do at the next council meeting. So basically the notes from the September 3rd council meeting, which is the last one they had before this one that didn't happen, it shows that the mayor told the council that they only had $5,000 in the bank, period.
00:17:55
Speaker
so how they magically came up with $17,000 plus the 5,000. You know, the council members are asking the clerk, like, well, where did this come from? Because they can't ask the mayor directly because she's not there.
00:18:06
Speaker
And so when council members asked the town clerk where these funds magically appeared from, she responded, we had a really good night at court Thursday. Which brings us back to the dependence on fines to keep small towns afloat from part one.
00:18:19
Speaker
My face is in my hands right now because... Well, there's no industry in the town. Like, how else? Right? Yeah. i just I just sure wish there was another way because that something feels kind of gross about that. of Oh, we pulled a lot of people over for speeding. We're fine.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah. but that this is this is So we're starting to see, like these again, these systemic issues, right? the The state is not providing services. Everything falls on the town. White flight leaves the town without a tax base.
00:18:51
Speaker
That leads. Yeah. So you're you're seeing you're seeing the dominoes. Oh, yeah. And the thing about these dominoes is that they are in um a spiral and they keep getting pushed back up and pulled back down again. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be a theme this episode. Oh, boy. Oh, so loyal boy. Oh, boy.
00:19:08
Speaker
So unfortunately, um the article doesn't end there because Campo was also behind on payments for the refurbishment of the town's water tank to tank pro. The company was originally seeking payments of $3,000 a month and cut that to $1,500, but the reduced payments were not being made.
00:19:22
Speaker
um And that that was for work that was done two years prior. like that That's been an ongoing thing as well. However, what money did get spent on was a, quote, new old tractor that the town had somehow purchased in the last two weeks, despite the fact that the council had explicitly told Mayor Izzell that they were not approving the purchase of a tractor, until they could all compare quotes and discuss at a following meeting. So these folks, they're at a a council meeting that that isn't actually happening because they don't have a quorum.
00:19:50
Speaker
And that's when they're all finding out that, they've They've gotten told over the weekend that the water's getting cut off. The town clerk is telling them, oh, no, that's taken care of. they They can't really confirm any of this because they don't have any financial documents to look at to confirm that.
00:20:06
Speaker
And there's the water tank situation. And there's the water tank situation. And somebody bought a new old tractor. So a a a tra a a used tractor that would be new to the purchaser that they already told the mayor no on, but had somehow been purchased. Right. Now, they didn't say, like, just flat out. No, they were like, we want to look at... We want to compare quotes. We want to shop around. We want to make sure this is the best deal that we can get for the town's money, which is all reasonable until the tractor just gets purchased before any of that gets done.
00:20:37
Speaker
Right. and And so, yeah, this is what I meant by, like, this article kind of... this is this This ain't great. No. On top of all this, according to an audit of the town's financial statements for fiscal year 2017... The town hasn't made payments on bonds used to work on the town sewer system, ah sewage system. that That town sewer sewage system, like those bonds and everything, that's from the 90s. It's been so long that that actually the sewage system is what desperately needs to be fixed at this point.
00:21:07
Speaker
um So the the audit states the town owes more than $500,000 in principal and another million in accrued interest due to lack of payment for years. So and this is before Mayor Eisel.
00:21:19
Speaker
they They owe one point five million dollars for this matter alone. And they didn't have five grand in the bank. This is this is just a rough situation. Right. Because it's sewage. You can't not yeah deal with it. And if you remember. So remember when we were talking about it like last time, like this is why I was kind of putting us through the.
00:21:39
Speaker
this is what the town is going through. It's contracting people. This is why I was about the white flight, because if you think about the timing, right, they were taking out the bonds in the 90s. The white flight is kind of late 80s, right? So if you look at their financials then, that's a reasonable step to take, right? They have no reason to think that the town's going to continue. those major factors not changed, they might have been able They would have been able to right like they're making those decisions based on the audits then and so it becomes a death spiral which anybody in it who has been poor knows right where you're like i have to do this and then you're like somehow i'm gonna have to find the money for it like surely things will get better and then if they don't or they continue to contract it just gets worse and worse and worse so and to be clear like i said the sewage work dates back from the I don't want this to sound like I'm putting this all on Mayor Izzel. This is by far not on. This is this is decades and decades. Right. And and there are systemic issues that is causing this town to be perpetually trying to get on top of things. You know, they're they're poor town.
00:22:41
Speaker
um So there's also reporting from 2015 about $154,000 owed to the IRS, and that was under a previous mayor, Danny Evans. So this is this is not a one-person problem. This is not a, oh, there was a bad counsel. like this is This is decades, right? This is a confluence of chronic factors that are coming together to really make things...
00:23:04
Speaker
Because it these are these are fundamentals. This is water, sewage, trash collection. These are things that lots of towns take for granted because they do flow smoothly. And when that flow stops, it's ah bad.
00:23:20
Speaker
Water crisis.
00:23:24
Speaker
So I promise I'm not saying all of that to make the town look bad. It's context for the lawsuit that we're about to talk about. Because when we get into the nitty gritty in the lawsuit and when I start playing some of the audio clips, um I think, Faye, that that you may have the same anger reaction I did.
00:23:40
Speaker
But the the last piece of context before we dive into it is how Dadeville handled Camp Hill the last time the water bill was late. So again, reminder, Dadeville is the neighboring town. They are more affluent.
00:23:52
Speaker
They are ah whiter. So Camp Hill is like 90 percent black. Dadeville is. um majority white. Dadeville is about 3,000 people. Camp Hill is 1,000. Dadeville has where that's where everybody goes to shop, right? That's where the high school is. Like these two towns are earth highly school is. That's where the actual grocery stores are. right Residents of Camp Hill are spending money in Dadeville. Dadeville gets that tax revenue.
00:24:13
Speaker
Camp Hill sees none of it. Problems continue. Right. and And Camp Hill specifically pays Dadeville for their water. So back on February 9th, 2023, Camp Hill owed $66,000 to for water.
00:24:27
Speaker
This is two grand more than the bill in 2019. Right. And that one had been festering for a while. um But we're we're not at the shutoff point. Like we're not at a make an emergency payment by Monday kind of deal. It was like as of February 9th, they were late on this payment. Right.
00:24:42
Speaker
Which is why this statement from the Dadeville Utility Superintendent Mike Ingram raised my eyebrows. Right. According to Ingram, the debt incurred this time exceeds the previous amount from four years ago. Several years back, they were behind and got caught up, but they were not as high as these bills are. Technically true, but they are, they're, they're incomparable straights. Yeah,

Water Billing Disputes with Dadeville

00:25:05
Speaker
to your point, technically, $66,000 is greater than $64,000, but that's a 3% difference.
00:25:11
Speaker
And it really feels like the town's in an entirely different financial situation than what was going on in 2019. You know, a lot of these old things have have been resolved. Now, to be fair to the residents, I know there been water problems outside of this in that, like, the water pressure sucks. Sometimes the water... It's randomly like turned off. A lot of that is because if they have to do any work, like if there's a mainline burst, they have to turn off the entire town's water supply. They can't isolate it. right there It's an old system. It needs it needs investment.
00:25:38
Speaker
Ingram goes on in this article. So again, that's the utility, us so the Dadeville Utility Superintendent. The worst probably came during October, November of 2022, Ingram said.
00:25:51
Speaker
We started noticing it more. They were keeping everything current, and then it just started getting a little bit worse and a little bit worse. According to Ingram, Camp Hill's water bills in the past typically averaged between 15,000 and 20,000, but in recent months, nearly doubled.
00:26:04
Speaker
That is because there are water leaks in the system because I can promise you their customers don't have that many leaks, he said. Now this, in retrospect, is very interesting.
00:26:18
Speaker
Because the water bills that Camp Hill was getting from Dadeville were a lot higher than nearly doubled. And there are some other shenanigans going on here. So, by the way, Camp Hill got completely current with its water bills by July 11th, 2023. Let's go Camp Hill.
00:26:34
Speaker
The lawsuit.
00:26:37
Speaker
So Camp Hill buys its water from Dadeville. We kind of touched on this briefly a couple of times. So ah the water comes from Alexander City, ultimately. And Alexander City gets it from from the lake and from the Talapusa River. So what Alexander City is doing is it's selling to nearby municipalities. The the pipes run through Camp Hill. So Dadeville buys from Alexander City and then resells it to Camp Hill.
00:26:59
Speaker
So Camp Hill entered an agreement with the city of Dadeville to purchase water for the town back in 2012. And lately, that agreement is weighing heavily on Camp Hill. The mayor estimated 40 to 50 percent of the city's budget currently goes towards water, leaving the town with very little funding for anything else.
00:27:18
Speaker
Our entire budget is about $1.5 million, dollars he cited. Last three or four months, we've been billed for over $209,000 worth of water. ok So, hold on a second here, because that is that is so much.
00:27:36
Speaker
Because you can get, like, a gallon water at the store for a couple of bucks, and that's... Less than that. It's ah about 48 cents a gallon if you're buying it, like, that wholesale fill-up at the front.
00:27:48
Speaker
I also have had my water shut off, and I i do i know this ah by heart. So that's over that would be over 400,000 gallons like just from. Oh, we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that. So to to put this into perspective on an individual level. Right. Because we're we're talking about this on a town level. But there are people who are affected by this. Right. Because if the town of Camp Hill gets billed $209,000 like they're not the town's not just paying that. Right. The Camp Hill residents pay the town. Right.
00:28:19
Speaker
for the water that they Camp Hill then pays Dadeville. And so some of the friction between residents and The town council or like town leadership up until this lawsuit became public was that we are paying y'all more and more money.
00:28:34
Speaker
We are paying so much for our water bills and then our water is getting cut off or it's threatened to get cut off because you're not paying Dadeville. Like what is going on? Yeah, there's there's the the situation is a little fucky-wucky.
00:28:44
Speaker
Right. And so to put this in perspective on the individual level, Camp Hill resident Kashko Williams paid $100. $385 this month for water while living in a one-bedroom apartment. For comparison, her former three-bedroom home never ran a water bill above $80.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, like I'm used to water bills being like double digits. Let's get let's keep going. I need. Yeah, I need to know more. Yeah. So Lee Hedgepeth for Inside Climate News analyzed the bills. And as usual, lead Lee has a fantastic article on this that I will include in the show notes. um So Camp Hill is a majority black community where the median household income is $30,000 year, like we mentioned before. Dadeville, population 3,000, is about 58% white with a median income just shy of of double its neighbor. So I believe it's like $58,000 a year.
00:29:31
Speaker
So can you read about the analysis? An Inside Climate News analysis of the town's water bills from 2020 to present revealed that Camp Hill residents have paid an average of more than three times Dadeville's water rate each month during one billing period, June 2024.
00:29:48
Speaker
Camp Hill was charged an effective water rate, its total charges divided by the amount of water used, of nearly eight times that of Dateville. That month, Camp Hill was charged $46,695 for million gallons of water, while Dateville paid less, for a lot more, million gallons. Now,
00:30:11
Speaker
i ain't right no it is not Yeah. but's Let's keep going. Let's keep going. this Let's keep going. So things hit a breaking point last month. We're recording this on ah June 25th.
00:30:25
Speaker
um So in May, this is where things really, really get get going. So I have wanted to talk about the water crisis as part of Camp Hill for a while. And I'm actually glad that we ended up getting delayed in recording this episode because um a Mayor of Messiah Williams Cole, as a fellow millennial,
00:30:43
Speaker
Actually, I don't know. He might be Gen Z. That's... Yeah. Anyway, he took to the internet with receipts. He is also at this point, right, he is now a practicing attorney. He's an assistant district attorney. So he's kind of done playing around. Let's fucking go, Mayor Messiah. going to play some clips from that. So um things hit a breaking point last month. Dadeville threatened to cut off the water by May 16th unless Camp Hill paid $125,000 in past due bills. But the bills don't add up.
00:31:09
Speaker
And I will say, like, that was the first I think anybody heard that Camp Hill was behind on water bills again because I didn't see any, like, articles from earlier, like, from March or April or anything. so I'm going to read a little bit from this um and then I'm going to contextualize where these numbers come from. Alexander City sells to Dadeville, right? Dadeville buys wholesale from Alexander City. And then of the amount of ah the amount of gallons that they buy from Alexander City, they're splitting between themselves and Camp Hill, right?
00:31:39
Speaker
Their contract says that Camp Hill isn't supposed to use more than 8 million gallons of water a month. And Mayor Williams Cole is going to get into this a little bit more. But basically, you know, it's rare for a town's water usage to drop much. You know, it can always go up. Generally speaking, people don't need less water. Generally speaking, there's sort of a baseline that folk need to drink and bathe and cook and do all those other things that people And seasonal fluctuations in that people are watering their lawns or gardening in the summer. And then in the winter, if it freezes, which will happen at least a couple times a year in our infrastructure... cannot withstand freezes, so you will inevitably have pipes breaking.
00:32:24
Speaker
And then, of course, when that happens, when and when anything bursts, they have to shut off the power that the supply to the whole ah town to then fix that problem. But when you look at these bills, so in January of 2025, Alexander sells to Dadeville 22.47 million gallons. We're just going to round that down, 22 million gallons. Dadeville then sells to Camp Hill 6.68 million gallons. Dadeville pays $35,000.
00:32:51
Speaker
approximately, to Alexander City for their 22.4 million gallons. They charge Camp Hill $39,000 for $6.168 million. dollars Camp Hill's fees ah like for their water is subsidizing the entire bill of Dayville, and they're making money on top of it. Yeah, like... just like It gets worse. They're being charged more for... They're being charged a greater amount for essentially a quarter of the water. And it keeps going. So in February, Alexander sells to Dadeville. Well, that's what they they claim, at least.
00:33:29
Speaker
they They say that the Dadeville portion of the bill, right, is 16 million gallons. And Dadeville says that they sent to Camp Hill 10.6 million gallons. So for that month, Dadeville's water bill was $25,000. Hill's was Now, what's really interesting and weird about this is that Daveville, again, typically uses 21, 22, 23 million gallons.
00:33:54
Speaker
How did they get to 16 million overnight? And at the same time, Camp Hill's usage almost doubles. And that pattern continues. So March, they go back up to 20.2 million gallons. That's what Dadeville is using. Camp Hill is at 8 million gallons. That's still kind of high for them, but, you know, okay, maybe there's a leak or something, although there isn't one isn't one listed. So March, Dadeville is paying 31, rounding $32,000 for water. is now paying a month
00:34:26
Speaker
for for water right april $31,000, right? so so if you look at costs, right, they're all about in the the the low thirty s high twenty s range. They're they're keeping the price low for their folks and passing the cost along to the camp hill folks Well, that's certainly what the numbers would say. Now, Dadeville is going to claim differently, but these these are the facts. this is like There are water meters. the The numbers don't lie, right? I'm not i'm not like a forensic accountant. I can't say for sure, but as a layperson, looking at these numbers, just the discrepancies therein, that something suspicious is occurring.
00:35:10
Speaker
oh Oh, is it? Oh, is it? So, um things got a little... Okay, I don't want to make a spectacle of this, but like, the girls are fighting and and the receipts are involved and it's it's i do really love it when you can just like point at somebody and be like no you fucked up you really fucked up here actually no you you y'all and then and then you get angry because you realize what the implications of them fucking up is so may 16th right dadeville threatens to cut off camp hills uh water supply says that they're behind on i think 125 000 bill and camp hill is like or the the council and the mayor is like all right that's it we have Had it up to here. And they put out a four page statement. They publish this on all their social medias and they send it. This is the letter they also sent you know to the town. So I'm not going to read the the full letter, but in brief, growing up in Camp Hill, and this is this is from the perspective of Mayor Messiah Williams Cole, but the entire council signs off on this letter.
00:36:06
Speaker
Growing up in Camp Hill, I always had a chip on my shoulder, not from a sense of inferiority and definitely not rooted in aggression, but grounded in a deep, humbling pride, a pride that I could withstand any any type of undeserved dirt put on my name because Camp Hill made me strong.
00:36:21
Speaker
In Camp Hill, we believe in fighting for our right to sovereignty, our right to assemble in peace and love, and most importantly, our right to exist. And this is a pretty crucial part of this story is Camp Hill's right to exist.
00:36:34
Speaker
Dadeville Water and Sewer is threatening to cut off Camp Hill's water, but the difference lies in the reason why. In March of this year, the town of Camp Hill and initiated a water audit due to some questionable questionable bills received from Dadeville.
00:36:47
Speaker
We requested the bills that Alexander City sent to Dadeville and compared them to the ones Dadeville sent to us. So that's what we've kind of been reading from. okay And I'm not going to get super into this because Messiah literally talks through all of this, but I'm just kind of giving you the the the overview.
00:37:03
Speaker
So here's where things get fucky. Mm hmm. Now Camp Hill has the the water bills from Alexander City. So they're able to put together those facts that I was just reading to you. Right. Because. This entire time, they've been operating under the assumption that their water bills are going up and so is Dadeville's because Dadeville is passing on the cost from Alexander City to them.
00:37:23
Speaker
That is not what's happening. um What is happening is that in um so on on October 5th, 2012, they enter into that first contract with Dadeville. This is the one they've been operating under the entire time. Dave will agree to sell us water at $2.35 per 1,000 gallons while buying it from Alexander City at $1.58 per 1,000 gallons. and that They knew that up front. They're like, okay, yeah, you you have to you know the infrastructure to pipe it to us. sure, right sure. sure we're we're buying You're buying it wholesale. We're buying it from you at $2.35. Now-
00:37:57
Speaker
The contract states that this sum per 1,000 gallons may be adjusted by the board upward or downward in accordance with the cost of the water to the board, and the board here is the Dadeville board, um as purchased from the city of Alexander City.
00:38:10
Speaker
Meaning, if Alexander City's rates go up, they can charge more. So what happened is that May 14, 2014, Dadeville raised Camp Hill's price to $2.40. So, cent Alexander City, still
00:38:26
Speaker
June 15th, 2017, they raised their price to $3.40 thousand gallons. Alex City, still $1.58. September 14th, 2021, raised Camp Hill's price to $4.40. Alex City, still at $1.58. June 15th, 2022, they raised it to $5.40. september fourteenth twenty twenty one raised camphills price to four dollars and forty cents alex city still at a dollar fifty eight june fifteenth twenty twenty two they race it to five forty And in July 12, 2024, they raised Camp Hill's price to $6.40.
00:38:51
Speaker
So this is why I said Ingram's statement for a number of reasons. Why Ingram's statement, the Dayville Utility ah Superintendent, the person who definitely should know, like if he doesn't know he's incompetent ah the of what the rate prices that they're selling get to Camp Hill. he doesn't know he's incompetent, if he does know he's malicious.
00:39:10
Speaker
Right. And then to put into context that quote earlier, the worst came probably during October, November 2022. We started noticing it more. They were keeping everything current. And then it just started getting a little bit worse and a little bit worse in terms of getting behind on the bills. And he blames it on water leaks.
00:39:27
Speaker
But in June of 2022, that's when they up the price to $5.40, right? They are behind by November because you think like there's a delay, right, in when charges come through. So the first game charged July, August, September. So they're they're starting to run behind November. And he's saying, well, they were on top of their bills until we...
00:39:47
Speaker
Raised the rate again. They were they were doing so well until we decided to squeeze them for another dollar a gallon. Dollar per thousand gallons. Dollar per thousand gallons. Excuse me. It's still but I mean it it it adds up because you see those the actual water bill costs. So the final cost right now at least that the last raise was July 2024.
00:40:07
Speaker
um And that's what raised campville price Camp Hill's price to $6.40 per thousand gallons. Dadeville's rates have not gone up. They have bought their water consistently from Alexander City at $1.58 per thousand gallons.
00:40:23
Speaker
And that's why the... It's part of the lawsuit. So the the the they got a they got an injunction from a judge to um stop Dadeville from turning off their water as they fight over this.
00:40:35
Speaker
They've almost

Legal and Political Tensions with Dadeville

00:40:37
Speaker
tripled the price on Camp Hill while keeping their price the the same. Yep. That's exploitative. And now think about all of those past due bills, all of the struggling. And it gets worse. But this is a big part of it, right? Like, this is a town where $5,000 in the bank matters. Right.
00:40:57
Speaker
matters And now these rates have tripled. Right. And and you're seeing it in the bills. They're getting bills for sixty five, sixty nine thousand dollars a month.
00:41:08
Speaker
And this is a town that five thousand dollars in the bank is is a big deal. Right. yeah So this is a town where their their yearly budget is one point five million dollars. Right. That's not Dadeville's reality.
00:41:21
Speaker
So after the the town of Camp Hill posted that statement calling out Dadeville, Dadeville went nuclear. So Dadeville put out this press release. This is very lovely press release. For many years, the town of Camp Hill has been delinquent in paying the bills they accrue.
00:41:36
Speaker
In early 2025, Walnut Hill shut the water supply off to the town of Camp Hill, leaving the main supply of water to come from Dadeville. The water consumption has been anywhere from 8 to 11 million gallons of water for 500 customers.
00:41:47
Speaker
The town of Camp Hill has no industry. Therefore, their largest user of water should be Southern Prep Academy. For far too long, the town of Camp Hill has refused to acknowledge and repair water system issues. In 2023, there was a multi-million dollar offer to the town of Camp Hill to get the water system repaired and release the system to another agency.
00:42:04
Speaker
Instead of Camp Hill taking the offer and having a chance to save their town, they refused. Dadeville has been accused of unfair billing practices and stealing from Camp Hill. The facts are that Camp Hill will not repair the water system.
00:42:14
Speaker
The main pump station is supplying Camp Hill water, has been running nonstop since January of 2025. Camp Hill admitted in court they do not have the resources to repair the system. They also recognize their electric bill has increased significantly due to that pump.
00:42:26
Speaker
Dadeville Water Board has attempted to assist Camp Hill for years with billing issues, and as published by the Dadeville Record, there's an outstanding bill of $160,475,000 with another bill coming due. now before we move on um Let's break down a few things and that in that little paragraph. is Can I take victim blaming for 500, Alex? like i So, who well, the town of Camp Hill has no industry. and And whose fault is that? Okay, I guess it's not fair to blame Dadeville for that. But like that is where the tax base is going. um For far too long, the town of Camp Hill has refused to acknowledge and repair water system issues. That is categorically false. I'm going to turn it over to ah the recordings from Masai in a second. But um just like all towns and cities in the U.S., they got ARPA money. They got American Rescue Plan money. And they specifically applied for grants to fix the water and sewage infrastructure. And they got some of those grants. That is where this BS, like multimillion dollar offer. By the way, when they say a multimillion dollar offer to the town of Camp Hill to get the water system repaired and release the system to another agency, that's a very fancy way of saying turn the entire water system over to Dadeville. Yeah, like... That's what Daydwell wants. One of the best ways to control a population is by controlling its water and food.
00:43:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm. that they're saying, hey, we'll give you this money to fix it if you'll make it ours afterward. oh no, they they want it... in their control first and then they say they're going to fix it.
00:43:49
Speaker
Okay. We'll get it. No, it's, it is worse. It is worse. Even worse. And they say, um, Camp Hill admitted in in court, they don't have the resources to repair the system because you're exploiting them. They don't have the money. Because you're overcharging them by Beyond the scope of the contract too, right? They also recognize their electric bill is increased significantly due to that pump.
00:44:12
Speaker
If they had the money to fix the pump, I'm sure they would like to fix the pump. So continuing, the Dadeville Water Board had to take quick action in sending a letter to the town of Camp Hill and demand payment or be turned off, as any service provider to the public does. If this behavior were to continue, the town of Camp Hill would bankrupt the Dadeville Water Authority, ultimately causing issues for our own community.
00:44:31
Speaker
This behavior has a trickle-down effect and ultimately harms Dadeville and Alexander City if that were to happen. If Dadeville Water Board is wrong about the amount of water passing through the meter, we will make it right as the new meter is on the way.
00:44:42
Speaker
Okay. All right. Let's start here. First of all, he if this behavior were to continue is really, i don't know, it it really rubs me the wrong way. It feels very patriarchal, very condescending.
00:44:55
Speaker
but Very patronizing. Very um as any service provider to the public does. But then they go on and say then they go on and say if this behavior were to continue the town of Campbell would bankrupt the Dadeville Water Authority. They are bankrolling the Dadeville Water Authority. Like if the Dadeville Water Authority.
00:45:15
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. OK. um And then Daveville says if they're wrong about the amount of water passing through the meter, we will make it right. The issue is not just the fact the meter is on the way. But the issue is not just the fact that like the issue that Camp Hill is contesting is like, OK, first of all, the the water usage seems to be a little weird because y'alls have halved and ours has increased.
00:45:35
Speaker
But regardless, even if we use this amount of water, right, because we're just talking about the meter rates, the meter rates has quadrupled. yeah Why has the meter rates quadrupled? They do not address yeah know that. Oh, yeah, no, because that would be admitting that it happened. And they don't want to even concede that reality.
00:45:53
Speaker
So the next paragraph is, yes, the circuit court judge issued an injunction not to turn to not turn the water off. It is not because Camp Hill has done nothing wrong, but turning the switch off would harm the community.
00:46:04
Speaker
We agree that turning off Camp Hill would hurt hurt citizens, which is not our goal, as we are friends with the citizens of Camp Hill. The only way to get a response from the governing body of Camp Hill was to send a letter of demand for payment or turn the water off.
00:46:14
Speaker
There was a scheduled meeting for the town of Camp and Dadeville Water Board to discuss the very facts they refused to acknowledge, and they were a no-show, no-call. Mayor Williams stated he emailed the clerk. mayor Mr. Williams could have picked up the phone and called us, as he didn't get a response by email. The board was sitting in the room awaiting his arrival to discuss the issues at hand.
00:46:31
Speaker
Now, The mayor is a practicing attorney. He was in court and sent an email because you can't make a call from a courtroom. Yeah. Like, also, if you've ever if you've reached out through official channel to a public official, that should be fine. The owner should not be on you then to also call as well. Like, I.
00:46:53
Speaker
So, yeah, the the board is upset that he was a, quote, no call, no show when he sent an email to the clerk. And they're like, he should have picked up the phone and called, but he didn't get confirmation of the email sent. Now, um so, again, this is what Messiah said, but I see no reason to not believe him. He's the assistant district attorney. And as anybody who's ever dealt with lawyers or judges or or courtrooms knows, there is the the scheduled thing that the thing is supposed to happen at. And then there's the you have to be there. But the judge might be 10, 15 minutes, an hour late. You know, like things yeah things happen. And you definitely are not going to tell a judge you need to step away to take a phone call. I guess it depends on the courtroom, but that makes sense. Right. And so the way this letter ends, this is why I've been reading this, because the tone of this. Right. The tone of this is. It's very condescending. It's extremely condescending. And also very like it's so hypocritical of like at the end they acknowledge that turning it's like, well, turning it off would hurt them and we don't want to hurt them. Right. But like, look, if somebody is dying of thirst, just give them the fucking water and work out the math later of how you can do that. Like, oh, God, it's it's it's it's just gross. Well, so the town then goes nuclear in the last paragraph.
00:48:04
Speaker
These issues are not between the citizens of either community. Rather, they are issues between the governing bodies and should be handled as such. As of May 1st, 2025, the Senate voted—this is the state Senate—voted unanimously 30 to 0 to take over the Birmingham Waterworks Board.
00:48:17
Speaker
See Senate Bill 330. And we are asking the state of Alabama to consider the same with Camp Hill. This is a threat. Yeah. Yeah. The Birmingham Waterworks Board— Let me be really clear. I'm not getting into that bill right now. As a former ah user of the Birmingham Waterworks Board, i high I hate those. I hate them. I hate them so much. However, what was done to them, there was a board takeover as a result of this bill. This was a a majority black board. And um the optics are not good.
00:48:48
Speaker
The optics are not good. And there is a history right of states taking over um black municipalities infrastructure like in Jackson, Mississippi and and other places, right? it's It's another form of control. The fact that they're finishing this up with, not only are not going to talk about the fact that we up the rates, we're going to victim blame that that y'all have not put money into, you're not good good stewards of money, you haven't put it back into. they're They're going to say that phrase, you have not been good stewards of money. This is a threat. So let's talk about that multi-million dollar offer that Daveville is throwing around up there. um They're reading off of, there's an article, and this is what Messiah is going to be responding to. So just contextualizing. um But there's an article that came out in 2013 that said, Camp Hill turned down $17 million dollars to fix their water systems.
00:49:32
Speaker
And until this lawsuit came out, i was also one of those people was like, what is going on with this? Like, there's lots of rumors, right? that The town's small. Everybody is talking like the water pressure's off. Like, we got to turn the water system off all the time. Our bills are going up. Why didn't they take this money? And so now that the lawsuit is there and everything, Messiah got on Facebook Live and he talked through this. So we're going to play some clips from that.
00:49:59
Speaker
Now we're goingnna we're going to hear from ah Mayor Messiah Williams Cole himself. These are portions cut out from his Facebook Live. I will link the, you know, you can watch the whole thing for yourself. and I'm going to be telling y'all the whole story of Camp Hill's water system since I have been in office. And really going back to kind of really to maybe about 2011, 2012. This is something that to be honest with y'all with me not running for mayor. Again, I am very, very happy to just be able to talk about some things and be talking about it and you guys know since i'm not running for mayor um i don't have a dog in the fight i'm gonna tell you exactly what happened i'm tell you from my perspective uh what happened and i'm gonna tell y'all um how i feel personally as a citizen and as mayor on a lot of issues what i will tell y'all is that
00:50:54
Speaker
The origin of everybody talking about this grant that Camp Hill denied or foregoes, as this is, I'm going to honest with y'all. It ain't as simple as they say.
00:51:07
Speaker
So what he's referring to is the in the live stream, he's sharing his screen and he has the article up and the the title the article says Camp Hill foregoes $17 million dollars in grants. And so what he's he's going to go on and break down here is that um that's that's not what happened. um That's not that's not accurate.
00:51:24
Speaker
So as you all know, in 2020, the town of KMP, well, everybody got a stimulus check. If you're a citizen and you made a certain amount, you got a stimulus check.
00:51:36
Speaker
wail citizens Well, citizens aren't the only ones who got a stimulus check. Towns, municipalities,
00:51:47
Speaker
oh local governments, counties, even states, They all got their own form of a stimulus check. And what that stimulus check was for things like municipalities, counties and the state is this thing called ARPA money.
00:52:04
Speaker
And so ARPA money is this is Camp Hills. This is how we address our ARPA money. So it comes from the American Rescue Plan Act. So he's showing on screen the Camp Hill's application for ARPA money and specifically lays out that they would use the money for um the sewer, water and that kind of thing.
00:52:24
Speaker
So Camp Hill. All of these issues that they've been having. Exactly. And if you want to rescue some American people, making sure that they have access to their basic needs is quite the rescue. Correct.
00:52:38
Speaker
Governor Ivey basically got money from the federal government, which is like Alabama stimulus, Alabama's personal stimulus check, and they gave it to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
00:52:50
Speaker
And that's what I will refer to as ADEM. a Quick addendum here. They gave some of it to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, which is a good thing. Alabama also, and we're not going to go into this this episode, but they also spent $400 million dollars of that money on building three new mega prisons, um none of which have finished construction yet.
00:53:09
Speaker
future episode um we would not own those prisons by the way we would lease them so so we're right lease them to talk about private prison no no no no no we we are not leasing them out it is a lease for us like we have to pay we don't own we won't own the building so in addition to it being abhorrent it's also a bad deal yes And it's going to cost over a billion dollars for one. Okay, later. Moving on. writer so Later. So the only pin I'm putting in that is that Alabama got more ARPA money. That is going to be a future future episode. And also, this is how much good, sending $225 just to environmental management, which then got distributed to the cities and municipalities, right? Like, you could have taken some of that and upped that. But let's let's keep going.
00:53:51
Speaker
So ADEM got a lot of lots of money. And when I say a lot of money, is I think the total was like $225 million dollars that was given to ADEM to combat water and sewer issues.
00:54:09
Speaker
So there are two funds. You have the Clean Water Fund, which addressed sewer issues, and you have the Drinking Water Fund that addresses water issues, water that you drink.
00:54:22
Speaker
When ADEM got this money from Governor Ivey, what they told people, and well, when I say people, I'm talking about communities, what they told communities like Camp Hill are, hey, we got this big surplus of money.
00:54:37
Speaker
You guys need to be basically applying for everything you can get. Anything that you need, you need to basically ask for the world. We'll decide if you guys get the world, but we need to know what you guys need so that we can the we can try to address it.
00:54:54
Speaker
So Masai is going to go on and explain what Camp Hill applied for because these are two different grants, right? These are, they're two the same place. They're two ADEM, but they have to write separate grants or grant proposals for the sewage and for the drinking water.
00:55:10
Speaker
What ended up happening was when we heard that, when people was telling you to apply for a grant, you're going apply for a grant. So we told them we we submitted to um we submitted two applications.
00:55:24
Speaker
We submitted an application for clean water. And so clean water addresses addresses your sewer system. And we applied for that. And we also applied for ah the drinking water fund.
00:55:39
Speaker
And the drinking water fund does stuff like regular water. So regular water is a drinking water fund. This is what we got. So right here, town of Camp Hill, sewer sanitary system and improvements. We got $6.7 million. dollars We applied for that much. That's how much they gave us.
00:55:56
Speaker
So, and we actually just finished the first portion of that. So we've used a lot of that money. So the drinking water fund is the fund that has to go with regular water system updates.
00:56:09
Speaker
If you go in here and you search Camp Hill, just like on the other one, you press enter, you can see what we applied for.
00:56:21
Speaker
And so what we applied for in the sewer system is for water system improvement is we applied for a flat out $10 million, dollars all right?
00:56:33
Speaker
So, and as you see right here, you see where we don't have like the roles. This shows you that we did not get approved for that $10 million. dollars So what Messiah is doing, because I know this is, this is an audio podcast. He's actually pulling up the um grant disbursement, which is publicly available on ADEM's website. So he was showing people like, look, I'm typing in, this is the web website you go to. You can fact check this yourself. Like I'm pulling up these, these are publicly available documents.
00:57:01
Speaker
You can see the money. This is what we applied for. We didn't get this $10 million. We did get the $6.7 million. So you're already seeing this is where the $17 million, dollar the number kind of comes from, but they got the $6.7, right? So they didn't get $10 million. dollars So where does this... $17 million. Well, that, but also why are people saying they turned down this money? like What's going on with that? So he's goingnna he's going to discuss that.
00:57:24
Speaker
I received a call from ADEM because they considered our $10 million dollars grant proposal And they gave us a counter offer. So the counter the counter offer, which was spearheaded by one of our, I believe, I don't have any physical proof of this, but which I believe was spearheaded by one of our representatives was, hey, instead of giving this grant to Camp Hill, let's give this grant to Dayville to take over their water systems.
00:57:49
Speaker
um Messiah Williams Coal, mayor of Camp Hill, did not turn down any grants. All right. First off, Messiah Williams Coal and the town council, which includes seat one, Constance Hurd, seat two, Juanita Woody, seat three, Dwayne Blackwell, seat four, ah Robert Goyle Shelley, and seat five, Ms. Deborah Sue Thomas.
00:58:15
Speaker
We all, and when I say we all, we unanimously, as in we were all in agreement that us giving our water to David was not what is best for the town of Camp Hill.
00:58:28
Speaker
So it was not a messiah made up this decision, that the mayor made this decision. We as a team, and when I say as a team, we as a team made this decision.
00:58:39
Speaker
One reason we denied the grant is because we were told that Dadeville would get this grant. So it wouldn't be the town of Camp Hill getting the grant, number one. It would be the city of Dadeville getting the grant.
00:58:50
Speaker
And then the city of Dadeville is to apply it to Camp Hill. um What we asked for is three things. We asked that, number one, town, you still be able to pay your bills at town hall. And we got that.
00:59:04
Speaker
And that was important to us because a lot of people in Camp Hill, they can't drive to Dayville the way they can, but they can't get to Camp Hill. I mean, the Dayville is quick. They get to town hall. So that was very important to me and the council. The second thing that I want to say about that is that
00:59:24
Speaker
we were told, well, if Dayville had to invest more money beyond what the grant provided, that citizens of Camp Hill could be paying more than what citizens of Dayville were paying for that water.
00:59:39
Speaker
And that is crazy because, number one, it is no more Cam Peel and Daveal Water System. The water system would be all of Daveville. So with that being all of Daveville, that's crazy. why why would Why would we have to pay the same a different price than Daveville if we are owning, if we are being given to Daveville? That didn't make sense to me.
01:00:03
Speaker
So to to recap right there, right, this is different than the water rates. They're talking about these discussions that's going on in early 2022, 2023, right? they They don't know about the water rates yet. So so the offer, the counteroffer that ADEM gives them is that you're not going to get the $10 million. dollars We will give it to the city of Dadeville.
01:00:21
Speaker
Dadeville will take over your water system, thus making it just just the Dadeville water system. Right, right. And if the $10 million dollars does not cover the cost of the repairs that Dadeville will be in charge of doing on your system, they're going to charge your residents more money. Now, this is all one system now. So instead of being like, OK, well, we need to make up this money. Everybody's rate's going to go up like 20 cents you know per thousand gallons. They're wanting all of the authority and power with none of the actual responsibility that comes with it without and any any of the of the obligation to the citizenry. who they would ostensibly look be looking out for the best interest of, but they are... it would be playing favorites.
01:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, between um the the residents of Dadeville would be getting one water rate and the residents of Camp Hill would be getting a different water rate when they're under the same water authority. I don't blame Mayor Williams Cole or the City Council of Dadeville for... Well, the City Council of Camp Hill. city Sorry, City Council of Camp Hill for declining that particular offer because that's bullshit. And I didn't include this, but but Mayor Messiah goes into um that they had a lot of meetings about this, that that there this was not a like one and done, like there was a lot of discussion. yeah But they unanimously decided. like there was There was a consensus. So I'm going to keep going with this.
01:01:42
Speaker
And the third thing, and i want y'all the point that I want y'all to keep this in mind, because for Mayor Messiah, this was good, but for Citizen Messiah, this was bad. The third thing was, or we can do a plan where Daveville would collect the bills and Cam Peel would be paid what we kind of made now in Warner.
01:02:06
Speaker
And I'll tell you why that that's a problem for Mayor, that why that's a problem for Citizen Messiah, but not for Mayor Messiah. As I told y'all before, if I did not have a utility department, I would not have any problem.
01:02:17
Speaker
If I didn't have to worry about water leaks and I didn't have to worry about the sewer or anything like that, I'm telling you my life as a mayor would be so much easier. It would be so easy for Mayor Messiah to say, listen, Dave, y'all have this, y'all do it, and I'll figure the rest out. I'll tell y'all for Mayor Messiah, it would be that easy.
01:02:35
Speaker
But for Citizen Messiah, it was not going to work because the good thing about this is that if any of y'all have any problem with anything i have done or the council have done, the next time it is an election, you can vote them out of office.
01:02:54
Speaker
If y'all have a problem with what we are doing with our water bill, I mean, with with Camp Pills water bill, y'all can come to council meeting and you can fuss about it and you can do all that. If Dadeville was to run our water system, you guys could not vote anybody on that water board out.
01:03:11
Speaker
You guys could not vote the mayor who sits on the board in Dadeville out. You could not do that. Why as a citizen would I want to be ruled without representation and a say in what has to be done to me?
01:03:24
Speaker
And it has already been said that they can charge a different price in Camp Hill than what they charge in Dayton. That just never made sense to me. That never makes sense to me. To this day, it don't make sense to me.
01:03:36
Speaker
Even if that mean as mayor, I wouldn't have a headache. So that never made sense to me as a citizen. So. Those were a couple of the reasons that we decided not to go with. But I want y'all to understand that this was a decision, not that Messiah came up with, but that the the elected officials that every that you all ah elected by a majority vote came up with.
01:04:00
Speaker
And we made on consideration of all the factors that we had to play. So, yeah, again, and I think that's a really reasonable decision. It's well thought out.
01:04:11
Speaker
Like, yeah. His reasoning is sound, both like just logically and morally. Like when we talk about the American Revolution, we talk about, you know, no taxation without representation. He makes a reference to that at some point, too. And it's like, yeah, you should have a say in who is in charge of your drinking water. That it's insane to even consider...
01:04:35
Speaker
else wise. Right. And that that is also what Daveville is threatening, right, is a state takeover of Camp Hill's water system in response to them essentially not kowtowing to this agreement. Because remember, so this agreement, right, is in um I believe the agreement I would actually have to ask beside some of the council members like when when the the um conversation started. But remember, there's two price hikes, one in 2023 and one in 2024. And I'm kind of curious if there was a price hike after they initially turned down this um offer, because i I think the timeline lines up. But I'd have to do a little bit more digging to confirm that.
01:05:11
Speaker
So um Messiah goes on. He is at this point, he's just reading directly from the article. This article came out in 2023. It's from the Alk City Outlook. And I didn't really feel the need to quote from it myself because he's going to kind of talk through it.
01:05:24
Speaker
And another thing I want you guys to consider is that right here it says Camp Hill may have made the decision that would cost the town $17 million. and And this is another thing I want to tell you guys. There was never no $13 million, $17 million dollars offered.
01:05:39
Speaker
This is the deal that was offered. The deal that was offered was that we would be getting the 6.7 million that we got anyways, plus an additional 7 million to do whatever we needed with the water.
01:05:50
Speaker
And that would be so we didn't we didn't give up 17. And this is one of the reasons. Excuse my language. This is one of the things that pissed me off. I wouldn't be so mad about these things that feel so many ways about these things. If people just told the truth, the truth is we didn't turn down on 17 million. We turned down seven million dollars.
01:06:09
Speaker
With $7 million, it's still a lot of money, but why do you have to lie and say it's $17 million? Yeah, so, I mean, it sort of ballooned over time. And again, people have been frustrated with this water system for good reason for a long time. I, as somebody who who was a consumer of... Client. Yeah, of of Birmingham Water Works Board, like, Birmingham Water Works sucks. It sucks so bad. But that doesn't mean that I want the white affluent areas around Birmingham to take it over, which is what happened.
01:06:38
Speaker
that that That is not improving my life. That's not the fix. ah So let me let me contextualize this. So one of the claims, right, that Dadeville is making in that letter is that Camp Hill's bills are high because their water leaks a lot, right? They have live a lot of water leaks. recall that argument. Which, again, is not addressing the rate hike part. That's at the meter. That has nothing to do with what's happening downstream. And so um Messiah is going to go to poke some holes in that.
01:07:05
Speaker
Every single water system in the state of Alabama has water leaks. Every single system. If you are telling me that there is a water system in the state of Alabama that does not have a water leak, they are lying to you.
01:07:17
Speaker
The average water leak in a town is about 10%. We have good water systems around us that have about 10 to 11 and at most 15%. But at a good water system is still going to have water loss. I mean, that's just it.
01:07:32
Speaker
So I don't remember if I clipped this out ah or not, but but he does say that like you know in terms of water infrastructure and infrastructure in general, Alabama's in, once again, the lower... Half of of right. So but he's just talking about for for average in Alabama, the water systems lose 10 percent, which is. Yeah, I saw your face. I, too, was like, wait, sorry, what? Imagine that you're doing like hurricane like prep and you get yourself 10 gallons of water and one of them falls off the back of your truck. But that's happening every single day with.
01:08:10
Speaker
mean, this is what chronic disinvestment on a statewide level looks like. Yeah, it's just like, guys... It's really so one. ah I don't think I included this either. um The roads in Camp Hill are really rough, like they are crater of the moon rough.
01:08:25
Speaker
And there was a lot of disc disagreement about like, well, we need to fill these potholes. And and um besides, like, but we got this money to redo the sewer. We have to rip up the roads through the sewer. I don't want to spend any money fixing the roads when we have to rip them up to fix the sewer.
01:08:40
Speaker
And then, right, you're waiting to find out if you're going to get this water money, too, because you should just rip up the roads once to do all of it at once. No, we're not going to get it. OK, rip them up for just the sewer. Like, these are the decisions that are going on behind the scenes. Right. And they're having to make these decisions while there are other folks pulling the strings as to what they want to happen for Camp Hill.
01:09:00
Speaker
So much bullshit. So much bullshit the that the good folks of Camp Hill are having to deal with. yes Just to have water. And just to just to have the water coming in and to have somewhere to put the water when you're done with it. like And remember, like at this point, a lot of folks have gotten their roofs patched, right? But people are still living with the the effects of the hailstorm, right?
01:09:26
Speaker
so it's just shit on top of shit. Now... Again, Camp Hill is remarkably resilient. And I really think that's because of the character of the people there. um There are things that are in Camp Hill's corner that that we're going to we're going to end on. um But yeah, you know, things have been done to Camp Hill.
01:09:45
Speaker
OK, so so the sewer lines and water lines are different, right? They're different lines. Right. So the first claim that he's debunking is the the water line. lee um And he's going to talk about the sewer and he brings up, a i think, a pretty salient point about camp about Alexander City. So Camp Hill not just geographically, but, but, um, terrain wise, right. It's, it's elevated.
01:10:05
Speaker
Um, and well, of course, like a lake is like the lower elevation, right? So if there are sewer problems in camp Hill or if if there's stuff, it's going to run downstream. So he's going to, he's to explain why that's, that's a silly argument.
01:10:19
Speaker
Leaks in the sewer lines.

Infrastructure Challenges and ADM's Role

01:10:20
Speaker
What I want to tell y'all about the sewer lines is that I'm going to tell y'all a big reason why I feel, and again, i don't have any, uh, I don't have any proof of this, but why ADM gave us the sewer money anyways is because if y'all know anything about Camp Hill is that Camp Hill is full of creeks and all all of our creeks eventually run into Lake Martin.
01:10:44
Speaker
What I want to know, what I want y'all to know is that if Camp Hill had leaks in their sewer lines and it was feeding into Lake Martin, Camp Hill would be upside down.
01:10:55
Speaker
it ain't no way they would let Lake Martin be infected by a sewer. So I want y'all to know that we would have some fallback from that. In fact, when I got into office, we were under a consent decree and a consent decree is a fancy way of saying y'all need to comply with something.
01:11:10
Speaker
By 2021, we were ahead of where the consent decree said we needed to be in terms of our water system. So there's no way that we have water in leaks in our sewer lines. And even if we had leaks and we don't have leaks in our sewer lines, and even if we did have leaks in our sewer lines,
01:11:28
Speaker
That don't make sense because we don't pay Dave bill for anything dealing with our sewer. Sewer is something we have in Camp Hill and our lagoon. They say officials worked out a deal with David Waterworks sewer board for Camp Hill to catch up on payments.
01:11:43
Speaker
If they did that, we never, they never spoke. They never reached out to the town of Camp Hill to see what the town of Camp Hill wanted. And that's a problem.
01:11:54
Speaker
Part of this whole lawsuit with Day Wanda, and I feel free with talking about because y'all know it's true. Cam Peel has always been treated like little stepbrother to the city of Day Wanda. They've never considered us as a peer. They've never considered us to come to the table.
01:12:11
Speaker
They see Cam Peel not as, I wouldn't even say for the taking, but they see us as less than them, which is a problem. We send our kids to school in Davia. We send, so we have friends and family in Davia.
01:12:23
Speaker
Some of the best people I know are from Davia. But yet they treat us like second class citizens when it comes to our government, which is a problem when we are peers. You don't even have to take his his word for it. The tone of that letter. that Oh, it's so condescending. The town letter, like they're sending it to to the town council, but they they published it. Right. They sent this to press and they published it on their ah social media.
01:12:46
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Like that was for everybody to read. And that was the tone. Because that that whole letter was talking down. It wasn't saying, we look forward to working with Camp Hill to resolving this situation or anything. It was it was very, well, they've made made all of these mistakes and we are blameless. Yeah.
01:13:07
Speaker
yeah I can see where where Mayor Williams Cole is coming from. Oh, I can see it really clearly. So we're we're going to continue a little bit.
01:13:19
Speaker
The city of David has attempted to cooperate with Camp Hill to address this matter since March, when initial negotiations with ADEM began, according to Representative Ed Oliver. Now, what I will tell you all about this, and this is my this how I believe this.
01:13:32
Speaker
Ed Oliver represents not only the town the city of David, but he also represents the town of Camp Hill.

Political Dynamics and Racial Tensions

01:13:38
Speaker
Why are you out there trying to actively sabotage what we have going on in in in the city? I mean, in town of Camp Hill, you work not only for them, but you work for us.
01:13:50
Speaker
Ed Oliver, Ed Oliver, Ed Oliver, Ed Oliver is probably best known at this point for anti-DEI bills. He was like the original kind of pusher. He called them divisive concepts and he did he pushed them for years um until it finally went through last year. And there's an active lawsuit on that. The anti-DEI bill is absolutely going to be something we talk about in the future. The best way I can explain Ed Oliver is um letting him talk in his own words. um For context, this clip, this is from December 19th, 2022. He is talking about his anti-DEI bill that's filed for the upcoming 2023 session, right? This article comes out Like this is all
01:14:28
Speaker
kind of around the same. He's all concurrent. Well, this is maybe a little bit beforehand, but he is talking to Right Side Radio about his his divisive concepts bill and why he believes we need it. This is gross.
01:14:40
Speaker
But until somebody makes people aware of what is actually getting pushed down to their students, and it starts at the colleges, and it's the educators teaching the educators, the intern end up in your school, that's where the problem starts.
01:14:56
Speaker
And ultimately, the reason that the left wants to push CRT amongst little kids is simply they want to sexualize them. They want to racialize them at an early age to to make them easy to manage, ah pure and simple.
01:15:12
Speaker
I hate to say a way to to create more left-wingers that are woke and will do the things that the left wants them to do, but that's exactly what it is. is to divide people, to make groups fight each other so they're easier to manage.
01:15:26
Speaker
The things that are absolutely absurd to to take from 200 years ago and try to translate into modern times and blame someone for, which is basically what CRT does, would be to look at diversity, equity, and inclusion training, which is infiltrated into every school we have yeah and literally has just taken over education.
01:15:48
Speaker
And it's sort of the dumbing down of of post-secondary education. I've got my own decades of military service as well. And you you yourself were an Army guy. um In all your years of serving, did you see systemic racism in the ranks as we're being told nowadays?
01:16:06
Speaker
Never. Yeah. Ever. Yeah. I agree. and Never did. Did I see the one-off occasion where someone said something off-color? Yes. But did I ever see a systemic issue? Nope. Never once.
01:16:17
Speaker
um Never. Nothing. out of and I was an inspector general and systemic issues were my specialty. Wow. ah yeah Never in the the four years I served as an inspector general, I don't think I ever had a race issue.
01:16:33
Speaker
So that's Ed Oliver, Representative Ed Oliver. And um I think that speaks for itself. I'm going to guess that that that that Mr. Oliver is Caucasian.
01:16:45
Speaker
Oh, a very, very. I'm going to guess that the gentleman he was talking to you on that ah broadcast is also cocky. Oh, very. You know, to to bring us back to what we were doing, Messiah Williams Cole is reading from this article in 2023 where State Representative Ed Oliver, who is the representative for Camp Hill as well as Dadeville, he covers both areas. um He has given statements to, in this case, I believe it's Alec City Outlook. It might also be the Dadeville record. about how Camp Hill is not managing you know theirre their water system well and and everything, right? And so Messiah's going to continue to read these quotes.
01:17:19
Speaker
But he said the negotiations were recently started after Camp Hill representative refused an agreement release control of the system. Camp Hill would still receive a portion of the revenue. So again, as Mayor Messiah, if I gave stuff over to Dayville and Dayville control it and the town of Camp Hill still got money, yes.
01:17:35
Speaker
Oh, that would be so good for Mayor Messiah. Mayor of Messiah wouldn't have that much work to do. I wouldn't have to continue to go around that. But for citizen Messiah, what that meant is that I would not have a say in anything that would go on with my own town's water system.
01:17:52
Speaker
So the current markup that Camp Hill gets when they sell the water to their customers, the city of Deva will cut them a check. So again, That's the deal we offer to them. Again, why would citizens of Camp Hill be paying what they are currently paying instead of what they bill is charging their own residents?
01:18:10
Speaker
That does not make sense. Why would we pay more than people who are in the same system as us? That never made sense to ah me and the council. It was no way you could justify us having to pay the same as that, to pay more than the city of Daveville customers, even though we were going to be owned by the city of Daveville. So what Representative Oliver said right here is true. The current mock-up that Cam Peele gets when they sell the water to their customers, the city of Daveville will cut them a check.
01:18:38
Speaker
That ain't doing nothing for the people who don't have to answer to them, all right? So Tyler Poole County Commissioner T.C. Cole said he also participated in negotiations as an additional news report he did. He attended both the Camp Hill Council meeting and the ADM conference call and discussed matter.
01:18:53
Speaker
In order for Camp Hill to receive the grants, they would have turn over the operations of its water utility department to the city of Davidville because ADM had a concern the town had a history of not reinvesting the revenue from its utilities and to maintain the existing infrastructure.
01:19:05
Speaker
And he said ADM would feel more comfortable that the use of taxpayers' dollars would be more successful. So in terms of revenue, right? that The town of Camp Hill is paying Dadeville for water right now. Their residents are paying them. They are taking a little bit like off the top, or at least they're supposed to be able to. Right.
01:19:21
Speaker
So Dadeville is charging them X rate and they're charging just like a little bit more to their own customers. Like they have to maintain their own lines. Right. And when their water main breaks, Dadeville is not paying for that. So in addition to like the baseline water rate, every water utility down the line is having to charge a little bit more to their actual customers. So what Messiah is talking about here is like the town itself gets revenue from its citizens when they pay their water bill and they use that money to pay Dadeville. Now they are supposed to have a little bit of that money left over so that they can reinvest. And what ADEM's issue is that they're like, well, over, you know, you've had these financial issues. There's just been a consistent lack of, of um investment in your own infrastructure coming from, you know, the money that you're getting from your people.
01:20:07
Speaker
Right. So Masai's going to get into that a little bit. Oliver said the requirement was ah appropriate given the town's water bill issue persisted for several years. And I'm going to get into that water bill issue now that we have an explanation for it.
01:20:18
Speaker
Based on past performance, that would not be smart. He said there are other people in Alabama that would be better stewards of the money. So, yeah, ah also the fact that, again, Representative Oliver is saying there are other people in Alabama who would be better stewards of that money.
01:20:30
Speaker
um Representative Oliver is from Dadeville. you know um I find it interesting he's not just saying like Dadeville would be that or Stewart, just other people in Alabama. So it's also leaving the door open for the state to take over the system. A thing that was not ever publicly said until Dadeville published that letter. um What was that? It 23rd last month. So that's the first that this has entered into like the public lexicon. And yet I don't know if I'm reading too much into what Representative Oliver saying there or his his phrasing, but that to me, that that makes it seem like
01:21:03
Speaker
when When they weren't playing ball initially, like this was a road that they were thinking about. um It's definitely a pathway that they're keeping open with how with how they're phrasing things and and setting things up.
01:21:16
Speaker
um Yeah, I do find that extremely curious. it it it Again, like we were talking about earlier, is is this... Is this just coincidence or is this smell is this intentional? Is this is this a a person from Dadeville seeking to give his core constituency an advantage over other aspects of his constituency? If you remember earlier in the live stream, Messiah says, um i believe this was engineered by a state representative. I don't have any proof of that.
01:21:49
Speaker
He's talking about Representative Oliver. And I i think that's a... that's a a reasonable assumption to make at this point, given the facts that we have, because this is, this is, um, yeah, this is, this is pretty egregious. So continuing. Yeah.
01:22:07
Speaker
Okay, so Messiah Williams Cole, Mayor Messiah, is is going to continue breaking down this article and talking about some of the comments that Representative Oliver made.
01:22:17
Speaker
And again, this this article was published in 2023, and that's going to be relevant in a minute. According to Oliver, there were several reasons that Camp Hill officials were hesitant on giving up control of their water system.
01:22:32
Speaker
Their concerns are a loss of employees. The mayor also made a statement about political issues within the city of Dayville, which I've lived here my whole life, and I never knew we had political issues between the city of, between Camp Hill and Dayville. We certainly didn't have any that would make you walk away from 10 million.
01:22:47
Speaker
Okay.
01:22:49
Speaker
If you are from Camp Hill, I want you guys to tell me if you believe that what this just said, I never knew we had political issues between Camp Hill and Dayville.
01:23:02
Speaker
We have on record times where the city of Dayville has threatened to do this and that to Camp Hill. They know it's a political issue. And I'm not saying and when I say that, I'm not referring to Mayor Goodman and I'm not referring to any of them personally. What I'm saying is that historically, I was born in 1999. Before 1999, even there were political issues between Camp Hill and Dayville.
01:23:24
Speaker
There's just work. I just want to remind all of us of what was going on in part one, right? When you look at the history of Camp Hill, when Ralph Gray was lynched, they dragged his body to the Dadeville Courthouse steps.
01:23:39
Speaker
And this is history that not only does Mayor Messiah Williams Cole know, but so does Representative Ed Oliver. So I mentioned at the beginning of this clip that this article that Mayor Williams Cole is reading from and that Ed Oliver is quoted in is from 2023.
01:23:55
Speaker
And the reason that that date's important is because there is a different article that came out. It was written by Siri Hadreen in April 6, 2022. And the title of that article is Camp Hill Fights to Uplift Black Communist Legacy Buried by Racism and Red Scare. And both the mayor and Representative Oliver are quoted in this article. Wasn't Representative Oliver also the one that we played the clip from who was like, I've never seen a racism while I was in the military? It's not a thing. And then it's like, I do this on a historic scale.
01:24:33
Speaker
The 1910s were not that long ago. Like 100 years is a lot to one person, but on the on the arc of history is pretty recent. Right. But like, again, there's there's the the further past. Right. What Mayor Messiah is talking about in in that clip was more recent history. Right. Like since the time he's been alive, even like right before it. So you're thinking about like the 80s, which is, again, when that white flight is happening. All of these other things are going on They are there are two communities that are tied very closely together, you know, like economically, they their friends, family there. You know, he mayor goes out of his way to talk about kids go to school in Dadeville. Like they shop, they live like they're they're close communities. Right. They have.
01:25:18
Speaker
they're friends, there there's all these things, but to say that there isn't on a structural level pressure that- On institutional Right, that Daveville puts pressure on. And so when I say that Representative Oliver is well aware of this history, I actually went back to reread this article ah right before we were recording this and realized I needed to rewrite the entire ending of this episode because I forgot that he was in this.
01:25:43
Speaker
So that that audio clip we played of Ed Oliver is from December 2022. This article is from April
01:25:54
Speaker
so So in April, he's in this article, and then he goes on to say that stuff on the radio, right? And the article the Messiah is reading from is from a few months later in 2023. I think it's like April or May 2023. So why am I saying this like this about this article? This connects right back to part one.
01:26:11
Speaker
So this article describes that the incident we we talked about from Hammer and Ho. I am not going to go over the lynching again. i think I went into enough detail in part one. Yes. And um yeah, we we don't need to... It's Thera. Yes.
01:26:24
Speaker
We actually quoted this article in the introduction of part one. um That is the one of the first quotes you read that said, outside academia, however, today the violent standoffs in Realtown and Camp Hill are little known. You read specifically the line, the history is well documented, both in Hammer and Ho, written in 1998.
01:26:42
Speaker
and Dale's husband, Theodore Rosengarten's 1974 book, All Gods, Dangerous, The Life of Nate Shaw. Now let's talk about the Rosengartens because this is where it gets really interesting because Ed Oliver has met the Rosengartens. Yeah, i I also was really surprised to learn this. So in 2019, All Gods, Dangerous author, Ted Rosengarten was visiting Tallapoosa County with a different interview subject, the folk artist, Lonnie Hawley. And I'm reading from the article. um who was trying to trace his roots.
01:27:12
Speaker
This effort led him to Camp Hill to a man of the same last name, former mayor Frank Hawley, who was the first black mayor of Camp Hill. When they arrived, Frank was at the breakfast table immersed in a stack of papers. The papers just so happened to be his wife's Dale. So Ted's wife, Dale, 1969 undergraduate essay, The Sharecroppers Union.
01:27:30
Speaker
My knowledge of the Sharecroppers Union came through Dale's research, and Dale is without a doubt the expert on the Sharecroppers Union, said Ted Rosengarten. And Frank Hawley is sitting there when they meet for the first time in 2019, reading the sharecroppers union, his his wife's research. He said it was a bizarre coincidence. And Frank says, oh, don't tell me about it. I've read this book, you know, four or five times.
01:27:50
Speaker
So they're in town, right? It's 2019. So in part one, so in part one I read a quote from the Campbell attorney, Gillen Waters, and I said, put a pin in that about there. You know, some people don't want us to talk about this history, about the history of Ralph Gray, of ah Lizzie Norris. um And I said, put a pin in that. We're going to come back to that.
01:28:09
Speaker
This article is where that quote comes from. And it goes on to say, considering he and this is about Representative Oliver, considering he has a bill making sure we can't talk about our history, And I mean our history, Gillen Waters said at the March meeting, that teacher isn't even going to be able to mention this, referring to Ralph Gray.
01:28:28
Speaker
If she does, then they're going to fire her. That's sad. So he's talking about the divisive concepts bill that Oliver was pushing at the time. Now, it did not pass that year. um it it passed last year, 2024, the 2024 session. But this has been something that's been going on and going on.
01:28:45
Speaker
You know, when asked to comment, Oliver denied Gill and Waters' hypothetical and said that the bill would absolutely not prohibit mention of Ralph Gray. It doesn't prevent ah prevent any history of teaching. But we've seen after the anti-DEI bill has passed what has happened, you know, on the institutional level. We're now living in the aftermath of that. And like I said, we will talk about that in the future. But I just want to make it really clear.
01:29:07
Speaker
Again, ed Oliver is aware of this history. And this is where... This is where it gets really weird. And this is also where his comments that they're communists and Marxists coming in to indoctrinate our children now strikes me as really weird because that's a consistent line I've heard from him. I never really thought of it being strange before. And then I read this. It's such common part of like especially Republican rhetoric. Right. That it didn't pay me. Like they called Democrats communists. Right. Like it it just sort of means nothing at this point. Communist is political person I don't like.
01:29:41
Speaker
Truly. For true a lot of folks. Here's where it gets really weird. All right. Ed Oliver's father, John Oliver. Not to be confused with the host of last week. to no this is not the same guy um there. They live in in Dadeville. Right.
01:29:56
Speaker
um ah He was still in grade school in July 1931 when he heard gunshots down the street. John saw Ralph Gray's corpse on the Dadeville steps and he saw people take turns shooting at his body.
01:30:13
Speaker
And he was able to tell the Rosengartens that exactly where it was, it was the entrance to the county jail near what is now the health department. And here's what Ed Oliver said about his father's experiences.
01:30:27
Speaker
He walked up the street and actually witnessed what was going on, Oliver said, and it changed him. He became very compassionate about race and relations and spent the rest of his life doing everything he could to help black people be educated and integrated.
01:30:41
Speaker
And it gets weirder. So flash forward to 1968 and Dale... I just want to just like, let's let's give kudos to the human being who saw suffering and like like changed his behavior based on that. How did he produce this man as his son? It's so confusing. that it's That is wild because it's like, yeah, that's that's a that's a very human response to seeing something so horrific. Right. And then your son's like directly... i Yes, it is baffling.
01:31:12
Speaker
So ah Dale Rosengarten. So remember, this is the person whose research on the Sharecroppers Union, the book that she wrote that Frank Hawley, the first black mayor, is reading back in 2019 when they meet.
01:31:23
Speaker
This is before she's written it, right? She's doing the initial research. They're not married yet. It's then boyfriend Ted and Dale, right? And it's 1968. They're visiting Alabama. They're two, ah quote, long, hard college students from Massachusetts driving around at the height of the civil rights agitation. in order to gather researcher for her sharecropper's union thesis. It was in the courthouse that she met John Oliver, who took an interest in her work.
01:31:48
Speaker
So two years later, Ted returned to write All God's Danger. So these are the these the books, right, that they're talking about in the opening of Hammer and Ho. And they stayed with the Olivers when they came to write their materials. So Ed, at this point, representative now Representative Ed Oliver, was in high school at the time. And it says he was the lone Republican in a family of Democrats. Now, again, these things meant kind of different things. I mean, we're right we're at the split of the Dixiecrat. So two years later, so that'd be 1970. I think the Southern Dixiecrat split has...
01:32:19
Speaker
It happened or yes probably, you know, started to happen. But that that is. Just, yeah, that's really that's that's that's something to me. And then it and then it keeps going.
01:32:29
Speaker
So he it goes on to say that that Representative Ed um oliver Oliver saying I knew him Ted very, very well. he came to visit me at the University of Alabama. So this is an ongoing relationship, right?
01:32:43
Speaker
So they stay in the Oliver's home for at least some period of their research, right? This is 1968. Two years later, Ted returns to um to Dadeville to write All God's Dangers, or at least you you return to the area. According to this article, Now Representative Oliver saying that sometimes that Ted Rosengarten stayed in their home. And he also goes on to say, I knew him very, very well. He came to visit me at the University of Alabama. So it wasn't just that this was a family friend. This is somebody that he was all also like close enough with to receive as a visitor.
01:33:15
Speaker
Right. When he was in university. And so originally when when they're they're coming, it's he's in high school. Yeah, this, this, I am, I'm very confused. So, so to back this up, this article comes out April 6th, 2022.
01:33:28
Speaker
Ed Oliver has already filed at least one version of the divisive concepts bill, the anti-DEI bill, right? The, the audio clip, and just to play it again so that folks remember what we're referring to, um this bit.

Water Overcharges and Economic Exploitation

01:33:43
Speaker
But until somebody makes people aware of what is actually getting pushed down to their students, and it starts at the colleges, and it's the educators teaching the educators, in turn, end up in your school, that's where the problem starts.
01:33:59
Speaker
And ultimately, the reason that the left wants to push CRT amongst little kids is simply they want to sexualize them. They want to racialize them at an early age to to make them easy to manage.
01:34:14
Speaker
Right. So he says this, this quote, by the way, this is this is December 19th, 2022. This is after this article is out, like public knowledge that he is talking about this connection.
01:34:25
Speaker
Right. In the Alexander City Outlook. What what kind of blew my mind with this? is It's honestly easier thinking of Representative Ed Oliver as as a caricature.
01:34:36
Speaker
i I certainly have for a while. he He has not said many things to dissuade me from that. ah particular understanding of him as a person. um He is not one of the folks who has multifaceted built. You know, this is kind of this has been his thing.
01:34:53
Speaker
So when he says it starts at the colleges and it's the educators teaching the educators, I can't help but think about the Rosengartens who are staying in his family home to write their theses. They are professors, you know, like they then visit him at the University of Alabama. They are doing this deep research. And then this idea that to learn things that they wrote would be considered indoctrination, racializing.
01:35:21
Speaker
When you have this personal connection, and then to go on to say. According to Oliver, there were several reasons that Camp Hill officials were hesitant on giving up control of their water system.
01:35:31
Speaker
Their concerns are a loss of employees. The mayor also made a statement about political issues within the city of Davel, which I've lived here my whole life, and I never knew we had political issues between the city of between camp Hill and Daveville. We certainly didn't have any that would make you walk away from 10 million.
01:35:46
Speaker
If you are from camp Hill, I want you guys to tell me if you believe that what this just said, I never knew we had political issues between camp Hill and Daveville.
01:35:58
Speaker
We have on record times where the city of Daveville has threatened to do this and that to camp Hill. They know it's a political issue. And I'm not saying, and when I say that, I'm not referring to Mayor Goodman and I'm not referring to any of them personally. What I'm saying is that historically, I was born in 1999. Before 1999 even, there were political issues between Camp Hill and Daveville.
01:36:21
Speaker
There's just work. The article that Messiah is quoting from, right, is, is I think it's like spring ah of 2023. So that's just a few months after he says that audio clip, right? And so then for Ed Oliver to then give a quote about how he's never heard of any racial problems, historical problems between Gadeville and Camp Hill, that is absurd. That is a lie.
01:36:46
Speaker
Or he just is thinking like, oh well, that's in the past. But again, in that but that's historical. Right. I just, it it, I suppose no person is like a, a, um a character. I don't, I'm not talking about perfect. No, no, no. I i think this is, this is truly reprehensible. Like,
01:37:03
Speaker
To one who much is given, much is is expected. With great power comes great responsibility. had access to fundamental knowledge that actually most white people will not be confronted with.
01:37:16
Speaker
Yeah. He had a father who witnessed a lynching in their hometown, and then he does this with his life. So, no, I'm not i'm not saying this to not judge him harshly. If anything, this makes it worse. Oh, yeah. This makes it so much worse. Like, like like like yeah this is this isn't...
01:37:34
Speaker
He's not speaking from a place of ignorance. If he was speaking from a place of ignorance, then some of it could be dismissed as that. But no, he he knows. He has secondhand experience of something terrible. He's had firsthand experience with the people who wrote the seminal works on the sharecroppers union. And then he's talking about this as Marxist communist.
01:37:56
Speaker
you know that that that that is a specific legacy in Alabama that is tied to black liberation and is is is not, that's not Soviet Union communism. I mean, no like, there's there is a lot of layers to this.
01:38:11
Speaker
And I just, I had not fully appreciated how much of an apparent liar this man is. Yeah, like... I really had just taken him as a um a true believer in the in the terrible sense. Like, he oh, he believes these like stupid things. No, he he he he knows better. He knows better, and he's doing it on purpose. no but that i i'm i'm i'm I'm tiptoeing around the libel line here, but like given the evidence that I have in front of my face and the things that he has said out of his own mouth, I am finding it difficult to find any other conclusion other than he's openly lying.
01:38:47
Speaker
It appears to be that. The mental gymnastics required for it to be him not lying make it seem like that is the more likely um the likely out like layout outcome in this particular case. I'm not saying he is. I don't know. i can't speak to what's in another's heart, as this expression goes. But but then add to the all of this, right, the the layer of the water crisis. And Davidville taking over their water supply. And, and, and at representative Oliver, you know, likely being the person that both, you know, mayor Messiah Williams Cole, and I suspect to be the representative behind it that, that, that,
01:39:28
Speaker
that Mayor Williams Cole is talking about that orchestrated the the you know the the whole plan of, no, that money won't go to Camp Hill. They're not good stewards of it.
01:39:39
Speaker
It should go to Dadeville and they should take that town over. And it just adds another layer of colonialism on honestly I mean just just just I don't know ah it's a lot of things it's a lot of things were we're getting very much into the if it looks like a duck acts like a duck quacks like a duck kind of situation I mean I'm laying it out people can make their own conclusions but I'm hearing a duck going crazy over there I'm also hearing some quack quack so Mayor Williams Cole is aware of this history like when he's saying that and I believe he is saying the you know there's issues between Campbell and Daveville, like on a systemic level or like on an institutional level, um he's talking about much more recent things than just this past history of lynching and, and um you know, a violence.
01:40:29
Speaker
Right. and And well, he is definitely talking about the water bill. So we're let's keep going. and So he said it beats anything I've ever seen in city of government. I can't say that there are nefarious reasons or somebody's of no good, but I can tell you that they what they just did was the most irresponsible things for their constituents. What I'll say about being irresponsible to your constituents is being irresponsible to your constituents means your constituents will not have a say in what goes on in their own town.
01:40:53
Speaker
Oliver said the the decision is disastrous for Camp Hill's future. Infrastructure is what promotes growth, Oliver said. Right now, there's no tax base to speak of in Camp Hill. That could be, but I get could guarantee with this decision by the city government, that is officially dead as a dam. I would be surprised if it is still incorporated in five years.
01:41:10
Speaker
did Did you hear that? Ed Oliver said, I'll be surprised if they are incorporated in five years. Yeah, that feels very close to wishing failure upon your neighbor, which is... One could almost argue creating the conditions for that failure. it is the type of thing that someone creating such conditions would say and like in a shadowy corner of a room, like conspiratorially.
01:41:33
Speaker
And bring us back to that first section. publicly Bring it back to that. Alabama, they love to say these things out loud. It's just that they rarely get connected in this way. And so when it's laid out like that, you're like, wow, you were just loud about this, huh?
01:41:47
Speaker
But, you know, i I haven't really seen anybody kind of piece all all of these disparate pieces together. um And if there's one thing I'm going to do, it's draw a line between a lot of different things and be like, I think this makes a picture, actually.
01:41:59
Speaker
But if you remember earlier in this episode, we talked about gentrification and Lake Martin. So when we're talking about Camp Hill no longer being a town, right, that means all of this land. If you remember that Zillow outline, yeah right, it ends right at Camp Hill.
01:42:16
Speaker
Camp Hill is the hamburger patty squished between the bun of Lake Martin and ever expanding you know the Dadeville region. And Auburn, who's also gentrifying and also expanding their city boundaries. They're the ones in the middle. right There's Waverly as well. Waverly is equally small and and is not majority black.
01:42:35
Speaker
That is like the the the creep of gentrification, the creep of realtors, of developers has already happened and started to happen around Camp Hill. So when you say this town won't be incorporated in five years. This is a region that is going to undergo, whether it is under the ah the control of Camp Hill residents or whether they are forcefully taken over, is going to under undergo tremendous growth in the next 10 years. So to look at this town and go, they're not going to be incorporated. Like that's another another layer. It's a bit sinister. It really More than a bit. It really is. I frequently engage in understatement. But but that is like.
01:43:14
Speaker
I think it's I mean. That's like a Saturday cartoon villain kind of. I really try to be really clear with like what I know is fact. Where I got facts from. And what is conjecture. And and this is very much like my opinion.
01:43:26
Speaker
there's There's no reporting or you know anything that I'm aware of that ties Representative Oliver to this. or or you know but But it's one of those things where it's like, I can see with my own lying eyes, you know there's a financial incentive here for for the developers in this area to move into Camp Hill. This is a town that's been historically struggling financially there there there are layers here right um so we're gonna go back to the mayor and less on me pontificating about my opinion to oliver they're in my district so i will help them in any way i can but i'm not sure how that will be okay since we have turned down this deal i can tell you now ed oliver has never reached out to me concerning anything else to benefit the citizens of camp here to be clear this audio recording this is from last week oh
01:44:15
Speaker
Everything Messiah is saying here, this is from June 11th, 2025. This month? Right, right. Two weeks or before we're recording this. So when he says, they're my constituents, I'll reach out and help them however they they can. The article where this quote is from is from 2023.
01:44:30
Speaker
Messiah is reading this in 2025.
01:44:34
Speaker
So let's run that again. They're in my district, so I will help them in any way i can, but I'm not sure how that will be. OK, since we have turned down this deal, I can tell you now, Ed Oliver has never reached out to me concerning anything else to benefit the citizens of Camp Hill.
01:44:48
Speaker
He just hasn't. He has not. I was talking earlier about getting kudos to people. I think mayor if if there were more folks like Mayor Williams Cole in elected positions who were genuinely taking their duty to their citizens as such a high priority, things might be a bit better.
01:45:10
Speaker
I think if the man that Mayor Williams Cole has grown into was in office from the beginning, things would have been different. um I am glad that he is very much...
01:45:22
Speaker
stepping up for his constituents now. And i I'm not saying that he ever didn't step up for his constituents. I will say that there are some folks in Camp Hill who have some strong feelings about his efficacy during the hailstorm.
01:45:34
Speaker
That is folks' opinions, and I don't live in the community. I'm just saying, like, there's there's some differing ah opinions on that. So, um yeah, so he's going to now break down um from a mayoral point of view. Like, you know, I talked about the numbers earlier about how Dadeville's water usage shrank.
01:45:52
Speaker
Yeah, the the the the bigger city's water usage shrank and the cost stayed the same per unit. But the number of units and the cost of those units going out to Camp Hill increased. It's a very curious situation mathematically. So he's going to talk through that.
01:46:10
Speaker
Usually month to month Camp Hill bills out to our citizens about four to five million gallons of water. and But we usually buy from the day of 6 million gallons of water. So if you do the math, that leaves us at about 20% water loss.
01:46:24
Speaker
So I told y'all a good system you usually has about 8% to 15% water loss. Camp Hill is at 20%. So we're not good, but we ain't terrible.
01:46:36
Speaker
The system in Birmingham, their water loss that got taken over by the state, their water loss was at about 60%. So we 60% of water.
01:46:47
Speaker
So right here on the average month, they bill buys 21. twenty one meat Usually they bill buys 21 million gallons. So right here, they bill bought 22 million gallons and we bought 6 million gallons, but they paid $4,000 less than what we paid.
01:47:08
Speaker
And I, what what I want y'all to ask is how is that even possible? So if we were paying thirty nine thousand, we not only paid for everybody's water in Daveville. So that includes every citizen, every business who buys from Daveville.
01:47:22
Speaker
And I know Walnut Hill has a backup to Daveville. So everybody who bought water from Daveville, we not only paid all of their bills, but we gave them an extra four thousand. And Daveville got everybody's who has to pay a water bill in Daveville's money, too.
01:47:37
Speaker
What kind of sense that make? What kind of sense did that make? February 2025, LA City to Daveville. LA City sent Daveville a bill for 16 billion gallons, but Daveville billed us a bill for 10 million gallons. All right.
01:47:53
Speaker
If we use them on average 6 million gallons and they use on average 15 million gallons, how now is Daveville only using 6 million gallons, but we using 10 million gallons. And this is something else want to tell y'all.
01:48:07
Speaker
Your water, the water you use can always go up because you can always have a water leak. You can always have something like that. but one thing I will tell you, there is never, ever, ever, ever going to be a scenario where ah a place can cut down on their average water deal by millions, by more than five, six million gallons, by really by more than two, three million gallons, because that means you would have to lose customers.
01:48:32
Speaker
And again, they only pay 25,000 as a whole. We were supposed to pay them $68,000. So we're going to $68,000. So that more than covers that that covers two months of their bill to Elix City. And then you still have an additional $18,000 a day give.
01:48:50
Speaker
Please make that make sense. How does that make sense? So if you remember that reporting from Lee Hedgepeth earlier, where Inside Climate News did an analysis of the bills, this made the effective water rate for Campbell citizens eight times higher than Dadeville residents. Yeah. And we have talked again and again about how much this town needs every penny that it's getting.
01:49:11
Speaker
And they're not only paying the water bill for the entirety of Dadeville, they're paying on top of that. And now we're going to get to the contract because on top of all of this, every time they're behind, there are late fees.
01:49:24
Speaker
Curiously, there are no late fees detailed in the contract. I'm sorry. Hold on. Wait. Messiah going to explain that. So I will tell you like up right now, i think he's that he's about to say this as well. Every time they're late, which is I think non-payment by the 15th of the month, they get charged 10% of the total bill.
01:49:45
Speaker
Why are we saving them out when we don't have, you're charging us 10% fee and we don't have 10% in our contract. That's something that they started doing. And this is rumors. So I'm, I don't know if it's true, but this is what I heard.
01:49:56
Speaker
Heard in 2017 when Ms. Ezell Smith was wearing, they had a little spatter son. And again, don't know if any of this is true. But say they should started charging it out of the blue then in 2017 because of some disagreement they have.
01:50:08
Speaker
And we talked about that disagreement, about that late water bill, at least when they when they, you know, i don't want to say when they first started, but one one of them. we We talked about that earlier. But again, when you're doing this to the town, you're not doing this. And again, i'm not speaking on Ms. Easy. are You're not doing this for Ms. Easy. You're doing this to hurt the citizens of Cam Peel.
01:50:27
Speaker
That's what you're doing it for. So again, why? And I'm glad we did not give them our award, sister, because why would you do that? So to make sure that this point is underlined, looking at the bills, when besides looking at these bills back to 2012, right, there isn't a late fee charged until 2017.
01:50:47
Speaker
2017 is when they start charging that 10% late fee. So this hasn't been like a consistent thing from the beginning. And it appears, you know, he is saying he's speculating um that this was done as a punitive measure against former mayor Ezel.
01:51:02
Speaker
She's not bearing the brunt of that. The citizens are. Yeah. And then you want to come around and say we would be a better stewards of your water system after, you know, allegedly doing something that could only directly harm the citizens and and the the users of that water system.
01:51:19
Speaker
it's It's all very exploitative and it's not good. no let's Let's keep this ball rolling. This is our contract with David. So right here, Cam Peel agrees to pay the board, the order of the board at the current rate of $2.35 per thousand gallons.
01:51:36
Speaker
and blah, blah, blah, blah. blah This rate, this song per thousand gallons may be adjusted by the board upward or downward in accordance with the cost of the water for the board as purchased from the city of Alexander city. Any adjustment so may, shall, and will apply to customers of Camp Hill. These boards shall notify Camp Hill of the notice of charge within 30 days of notice from Camp Hill, from Alexander city. So if they have not gotten a notice from Alexander city that they are going on their water, be going up on water bill since 2011,
01:52:05
Speaker
How can they be notifying us that they are increasing the contract? So he is saying, it's not a hypothetical, there has not been a single issuance from Alexander City Dadeville.
01:52:20
Speaker
Correct. Since 2011? Correct. So for over a decade, they've been dialing up the price on on Camp Hill.
01:52:30
Speaker
Yes. I believe that that... is in fact morally wrong. And I do hope that the justice system balances those books because what the actual fuck?
01:52:45
Speaker
it's It's pretty morally reprehensible. I think they're at $6.40 per thousand gallons. And Alexander City has stayed at $1.50? buck fifty Yeah, $1.58 I think per thousand gallons selling to Dadeville.
01:52:59
Speaker
So their their price has not changed in wholesale. And the agreed upon original contract price was $2.35 per 1,000 gallons. That's what Camp Hill would pay. The issue isn't that that they are selling to Camp Hill at a higher rate at all. The issue is the egregiousness to which that rate is higher and the Utter lack of of contractual basis for those price hikes is where the I'm sorry, what aspect comes from. Absolutely.
01:53:30
Speaker
oh And I'm glad you asked clarifying questions because, like again, there's a lot of numbers being thrown here or thrown around here and I want people to understand what we're talking about. So I've just backed it up a little bit. How can they be notifying us that they are increasing the contract?
01:53:42
Speaker
And when we signed this in October of 2012, but yet they 2014, 2017, 2020, 2021, and that makes no sense above time and again This is how you can know it's ah it's a contract that I wasn't here for.
01:53:57
Speaker
In 2012, think of who your mayor was. This right here is the late Samuel Ellis. The late Samuel Ellis was mayor in 2012. In 2012, I was in council middle school. So this ain't got nothing to do with Messiah. It ain't got nothing to do with this current council.
01:54:12
Speaker
But what it is, is that they are actually they have actually not followed the terms of the contract. Messiah now has all of the exhibits from the lawsuit pulled up and he's just scrolling through them. So he has put in what he's reading off of here is like the notices, the notices that the town received of these increased rates.
01:54:29
Speaker
May 14th, 2014. This is them giving notice that they are going up on our water bill. LA city ain't sent them nothing, but they said in the raised increase rate increase from 2040 to 3040 June, 2017. Again, right here.
01:54:40
Speaker
june twenty seventeen again right here $3.40 to $4.40. $4.40 to $5.40. June 15, 2022. Oliver gives that interview April 2022, or at least that's when that that article comes out, right? And this rate hike happens right after.
01:54:57
Speaker
July 12, 2024. $5.40 to into account that and again i want you on to take into account that two thousand eleven In 2011, I'm a 26-year-old man. I have graduated high school, college, law school. I'm a practicing attorney. I have a child on the way. I am married. In 2012, I was in council middle school, sitting in Ms. Jennings' class, learning how to do algebra.
01:55:23
Speaker
That's how long ago it was since Elliott City increased their rate on on them. But yet they feel that they had to raise it up on us. And I want y'all to ask why. I can't tell you why, because there will be an opinion of mine. And I don't want us to really talk about opinions, but it makes no sense that they could do that because it does not honor what is in that original contract that you guys just saw that was signed by the late Samuel Ellis and whoever was in office that day. Well, at that time.
01:55:49
Speaker
Do you remember we were talking about them being $64,000 behind um on that 2019 water bill, that whole cutting off on Monday, 17 grand do thing, right?
01:56:01
Speaker
They didn't actually use $64,000 worth of water. They used $52,000. And the rest of that were late fees that stacked up from multiple bills.
01:56:12
Speaker
And it turns out that in their contract with Dadeville, Not only does it say that their rate should only increase if the rate from Alex City increases, but there is no mention of any late fees. There is no there's nothing given about like you can charge late fees.
01:56:26
Speaker
So when you add up the overcharging and the years of late interest on bills that they were never going shouldn't have been charged in the first place. The rate should not have gone up on because the rate that Dadeville was paying didn't go up. And that was what the their increase was contingent on.
01:56:46
Speaker
And now when Daveville says, you know, if the situation goes on in their their letter, the one that went out on May 23rd, you know, the the nuclear bomb, I called it, when they're saying that this continuance of, you know, not paying bills or whatever could bankrupt the Daveville utility, I think what will actually bankrupt the Daveville utility is having to to hopefully, I am hoping that they get a judgment in their favor and they have to pay all that money back.
01:57:11
Speaker
Yeah. That might put a dent in Daveville, but they've been stealing that money. I mean, I'm not accusing any specific person of having done that. I am not accusing the utility board. I am not accusing the mayor or, so or you know, the the city council of Dadeville. But when you look at this as a whole, y'all have been stealing money from the residents of Camp Hill. It's not a, you know, nice way of phrasing it, but what's been happening ain't nice. So, and here we are. yeah And when I got there from Elix City, what I did was I put it into spreadsheet.
01:57:41
Speaker
So, to clarify what he's talking about, he sent a public records request to Alexander City. and got the bills that they sent to Dadeville. So he has what Dadeville was getting billed. That's how he found out that that date that Alex City had not increased their prices, and that's how we have the prices of what Dadeville was charged. They're not just mathing this up, going, well, you're charging your citizens this rate and X number of gallons. He's getting... the bills that Alexander City sent David. Mayor Messiah's got some receipts that he's going on. Well, i mean, that's what happens literally and when when you're a lawyer, you know, you like to get receipts for a lawsuit.
01:58:18
Speaker
And I'm going to tell y'all now, I went to law school because I hate mayor. I feel that. I went to law school because I really didn't want to do it math. But one thing that as a lawyer that you know about math is that numbers tell their own story.
01:58:32
Speaker
If you sit

Community Resilience and Future Prospects

01:58:33
Speaker
there and just pay attention to numbers, they will they will tell their own stories. So again, like a lot of the things that we're talking about, these are just numbers and they are telling a pretty strong story.
01:58:45
Speaker
Pretty strong, yeah. Fairly compelling. So right here, Dadeville's highest bill they ever got from LA City was $47,000. All right?
01:58:56
Speaker
So, again, when when Mayor Messiah Williams Cole was saying that Alexander City, the the highest bill that Dadeville got was $47,000, that is including both Dadeville's and Camp Hill's water usage. So the two towns combined is $47,000, like, up front. That's what Dadeville is on the hook for, and now they have to get the portion from Camp Hill.
01:59:19
Speaker
However... The highest balance we ever got was 68,000. So again, da is it's all the water that has come through Dadeville and Dadeville is dispersing water to Camp Hill.
01:59:32
Speaker
It also sounds like there might be some other communities and towns that like Dadeville is acting as kind of a hub for. Possibly, um but that isn't clearly. The Walnut Hill bit is um actually Walnut Hill has its own water supply and that Campbell had a backup line to them, um which they no longer have. And so Dadeville was arguing that Camp Hill was using more because they were no longer had Walnut Hill as a backup. And Williams Cole responded with, we never used that backup because that line is full of holes. We would just be throwing like, you know, good money after bad.
02:00:05
Speaker
um and besides we only have a contract with them for an emergency of like two or three million gallons, it does not explain a doubling, not just a doubling of the usage, but a quadrupling of the price.
02:00:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, this whole situation is fucked. Yeah, so again, right, so when we talk about Camp Hill's bill, they're only talking about their portion of the bill. When we talk about Dadeville's bills, that their high school is $47,000, that is including everything also sent along to Camp Hill.
02:00:35
Speaker
68,000 was the highest bill that Camp Hill ever paid. If 47,000 is the highest that Dadeville ever paid, and that is combined the bills of Dadeville and Camp Hill, and yet Camp Hill, for just their municipality, 21 grand.
02:00:52
Speaker
That's the lowest that Camp Hill ever paid. you But 67. The difference between. Oh, yes. Sorry, I forget that you can do math in your head because I cannot. I forget that you're a mathy girl.
02:01:03
Speaker
um But yeah, the over $20,000 of essentially... of Camp Hill essentially subsidizing Dadeville's water. water Yeah, yeah.
02:01:21
Speaker
if anything, that situation feels like it ought to be reversed in this. i i It's... it if it's fuck It's wrong. it's fuck it's wrong on It's wrong mathematically. It's wrong morally. It's wrong contractually. It's just wrong.
02:01:40
Speaker
Yeah. But I want y'all to see just how if you go through their bill, their bill always stays about the same. About the same.
02:01:51
Speaker
Yet Cam Peel's bill goes up starting in 2020 of May. Every year they increase to the point where a normal bill where we actually use about six million is at thirty nine thousand.
02:02:05
Speaker
So we're paying thirty nine thousand dollars for what we pay in twenty twenty, which was again too high, but was still fifteen thousand dollars.
02:02:16
Speaker
How do you expect us to pay sixty seven million dollars when you are being charged thirty six thousand dollars? When we were getting charged back then, we've been charged 15,000. They were getting 35,000. We were being charged 17. It will be in charge 30, 15, 30.
02:02:30
Speaker
fifteen thirty How, how did you see that increase? Unless you are trying to do something to our system. That is, that, that is basically, basically making us have to do things. Well, we can't invest in our system. How do we pay a bill? And I'll tell y'all in any month in camp here, we bring anywhere from 30,000 $40,000 in water people.
02:02:52
Speaker
If we only make it $40,000 at most, how are we expected to pay $60,000 in water bill? And even if you charge us $39,000 at our average, we only got 20, right here, it will only be about $20 to put back in our system. How do you expect us to invest in our system when you are not allowing us money to be invested in our system?
02:03:13
Speaker
So again, right, ADEM, the Alabama Department of um Environmental Management, I think that's right. you're the The ones who have the um the disbursement ability, the the grant approval ability, right? they turn they They don't want to give Camp Hill directly the $10 million dollars grant because Camp Hill does not have a a history of investing in their own system. The last time Camp Hill invested in their system, it was like the 90s with those bonds that were past due, that $1.5 million, right, that they were dealing with in the early aughts or late aughts.
02:03:43
Speaker
Yeah, they don't have a history of investing in their system because... based on what they're able to come in from from their constituents. And remember, their constituents are paying very high water bills. They Earlier we were talked about... Like $385 a month. A month, right, to try to cover these bills. There is nothing in the tank to invest in this, then their water systems get worse and they have less money to invest. And then on top of this, right, they're upping the rates and upping the rates and upping the rates.
02:04:12
Speaker
There is no way out of this because this is just fundamentally inequitable. Like it's it's a rigged game. that there they're They're in like the the economic version of a hydraulic press just getting with all the money just getting squeezed out of them and not any way to with no recourse. Right. Well, I i guess they are undergoing recourse with this lawsuit. So yeah, it's it's not equitable. It's just not equitable.
02:04:38
Speaker
The biggest mistake in my career was that when they bill raised the water rates on us. So when I got a ah letter in 2021, 2022, and 2024, the biggest mistake I have made as mayor is I did not contact Alabama City to see where they had raised the bill.
02:04:57
Speaker
That's the biggest mistake I've ever made. And I'll be the first to admit. And it's one of those things when you sit there And and you you go back and you like, and this is me, excuse my language, I'm like, damn, all these years where we're struggling, trying to do this, trying to take a day that. And we actually, as you can see it here, I want y'all to see where in these months, like 4 million, we had such good water rates in these months where we cut down and cut back.
02:05:25
Speaker
That should have cost us $10,000, $26,000. ten thousand dollars not twenty six thousand dollars And I want y'all to know where we were doing such a great job. And when I say we, it's not me. It's not the council.
02:05:37
Speaker
It's where Kiwana, the utility department, were busting their, excuse my language, but is I think it needs to be said, they were busting their ass getting water leaks fixed, making sure stuff was down, doing the best damn job they could.
02:05:51
Speaker
And still, we are still seeing our water bills rise and rise and rise and rise and rise. I understand like why he would feel that way. I don't think that's fair. You shouldn't have to pour over the contract for utilities every time you're getting ration to not get exploited. But I understand as somebody who also blames themselves when when things go wrong because it's like a form of, you know, like control that you have. And in granted, I'm not the mayor of a town, but I think I don't think this is his fault.
02:06:19
Speaker
No, because the problem wasn't that he didn't verify with the other's town. The problem was that he was being lied to of and being directly exploited by effectively his neighbors. like And being told over and over again that your rates are going up and your water usage is going up because of leaks. And so having these people who are not getting paid more, right, to bust their asses, to fix these leaks, to chase after this mythical idea that, like, their bills could come down again when all they were ever going to do was go up.
02:06:53
Speaker
Yeah. Because of these rate increases. Like, that is that is also another level of, like, wow, that wasn't our fault at all. Like, I mean, granted, you should always fix water leaks because it's just better.
02:07:04
Speaker
So this is the very last clip, and I don't i don't remember what was this one. I hate that it took me this long to find out. I mean, I got five more months in office and I found this out maybe a month and a half ago.
02:07:22
Speaker
and um um it's eating me what it' And it's not eating me up anymore because we're addressing it. But man, for the past, sits me since May been paying Too much. And that money adds up over the years. It adds up over the months and and stuff like that. Man, when I just think about it, it it it makes me mad.
02:07:43
Speaker
So since 2014, Camp Hill has been paying too much for water. And it that the gulf between what they should have been paying and what they actually paid has gotten wider and wider over the years. That is a decade of overcharging.
02:07:57
Speaker
At least five, maybe eight years of 10% late fees on bills that shouldn't have been that price to begin with. When you step back, and again, this is this is why these episodes were so long. This is why i said I wrote like a mini thesis with this is because I really wanted to talk about this water crisis in context with everything else that Camp Hill has gone through. So that when we are talking about this exploitation to understand that this is a straight line.
02:08:23
Speaker
To me, this is almost like a modern day sharecropping. Right. It's a system where you are leasing or you're you're borrowing against yourself. Right. They're getting the water for something you need. You're getting the water. Right. And then the bill comes to cost. And the bill comes later.
02:08:39
Speaker
And the bill keeps getting higher and higher and higher. And you're having to scrape and scrounge more and more. and then you're getting further and further into debt. And there's just something that, I mean, I don't know that it's an appropriate parallel because, you know, this isn't something that's being enforced with guns, right? There's there's nobody showing up by force or or or locking folks up. But this is like a slow death of a town. And it's it's in, it's it feels, the mechanisms just feel too similar to me not to bring up That parallel.
02:09:10
Speaker
I mean, it's like, like you said, sharecropping, it's like a company store. It's it's it's it's ah it's an economic model that is parasitic in nature. But sharecropping specifically because that is the history of Camp Hill, right? Is the sharecroppers and is Dadeville...
02:09:26
Speaker
enacting violence on those sharecroppers who just want to be able to feed their families. Right. You know, the the thing that is most common that women, that women, ah communist sharecroppers or the sharecroppers union organizers would talk about their were women is they wanted to be able to feed and clothe their family.
02:09:42
Speaker
That was their, that was their radicalization was, I there's no perfect way I could do this and reach that goal. So um I know that that that is kind of like a heavy thing. So I want to end this on ah on a on a more positive note. You know, I wanted to end this this episode or, you know, the the series really with talking about the future of Camp Hill, um especially talking about the federal cuts that have now affected Camp Hill. But the water stuff has been so much that I'm going to push off the the federal cuts to future episodes on Camp Hill, which I actually, in retrospect, think is better because instead of just talking about these facts and numbers, um we can talk directly to the folks impacted and and hear from them.
02:10:20
Speaker
So instead, because we are going to end on a high step, like you ah coined the phrase last time, we're going to end on a high step and we're going to talk about the story of Rufus Vines. Rufus is an incredible cook, he's a recovering alcoholic, and he is now volunteer of the year. i am paraphrasing the the the following from a wonderful article written by Abigail Murphy at the Alexander City Outlook, as well as some of like my own personal knowledge and experience with Rufus.
02:10:45
Speaker
So Rufus was just starting out his sobriety at the two week mark when he first met my friend Warren Titwell. Warren is the executive director of Across, a rural resiliency nonprofit that is ah based in Camp Hill.
02:10:57
Speaker
Rufus learned to cook from his great grandmother Mary, and he asked Warren if he could cook for the storm recovery volunteers. And I'm so glad he did because having had his cooking, oh boy, i am a fat man and I would be so much bigger if I could eat good at Rufus's every day.
02:11:13
Speaker
Rufus did not just make that one meal. He made 7,000 meals over the next year. He's been sober for the past 11 months at the time that this article was written. He is, I believe, 65 years of age.
02:11:25
Speaker
So he's he's older and he has has been turning his life around. Throughout Vine's months of sobriety, he has put in more than 2,800 hours of volunteer work throughout the storm recovery process.
02:11:37
Speaker
and it wasn't all through cooking meals. He helped with cleanup days and aided with organizing events. He also stayed overnight at the center when a caretaker was needed on site. Quote, there's two things you can't possess doing this types of this type of work, Vine said.
02:11:50
Speaker
You can't be selfish and you cannot hold personal vendettas because it will come back to haunt you. And to bring this back to faith? Vine said he told himself ever since he first went to prison, while the physical body can be locked up, the mind cannot.
02:12:03
Speaker
And so he has worked to lead with his faith in God and learn more about the world around him with degrees in horticulture, welding, and small engine repairs. I have been a problem, Vine said. I know I can't come in and fix the whole of Camp Hill by myself, but I want to factor into that solution.
02:12:18
Speaker
helping Camp Hill to get better. Whether I'm here physically or in spirit, I want to be part of the solution. And that to me, that is the future of Camp Hill. It is people whose faith and caring for each other and for their community has kept this community together over unspeakable horrors.
02:12:38
Speaker
Camp Hill is not going anywhere anytime soon. um It's a wonderful town. They absolutely need help and they need a fair shake. But these people, they they are they're the heroes they've been waiting for. I'm very excited to see where where Camp Hill goes in the future, um because I think Camp Hill 10 years from now is going to be very different than it is now. And my my deepest hope for them is that that future is dictated and and controlled by the people of camp hill and not any outside source whether that's including myself so um yeah that's that is uh my my mini thesis on camp hill we like i said ain't no many about it yeah yeah 19 000 words i think 19 000 words i think at the end i i hope that that was um i hope that that did some small amount of justice to camp hill i've been very nervous about this episode you know
02:13:27
Speaker
There's so much depth and complexity here. And I have been continually afraid of flattening people or making, you know, characters, characters out of these stories. So um I hope when the people of Camp Hill listen to this, that I hope that they feel seen and and heard and, um and that I will be turning the mic over to you in the future. So you can let me know exactly how you feel about things. So with that, um we're going to sign off and um there, there's a lot of really exciting episodes coming up. I'm actually traveling up to Huntsville this weekend.
02:13:57
Speaker
covering Marjorie Taylor Queens. You know, we've got some really cool stuff coming out. So stay tuned, y'all. Thank you so much for another episode. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. You're unfortunately going to be memorialized in history.
02:14:09
Speaker
There are people. They're Alabamians. There's a whole bunch of folks in the state of Alabama that are counting on us. And we don't have a plan. And they deserve better than what we are offering them right now.
02:14:21
Speaker
We don't sleep at night. because we already know what's gonna happen. The math ain't mathin'. But you have shown us time after time after time. That's not what you all intend to do.