Birmingham, Alabama's largest city is fighting a multi-front battle.

• Birmingham was just named the nation's 6th most dangerous city for the 2nd straight year. Through Sunday, there have been 79 homicides in Birmingham this year. There were 109 homicides in 2006.
• Birmingham City Schools were recently described as "abjectly failing" by an educational think tank.
• Businesses are leaving the Magic City (Saks, Parisians) and heading for the vibrant suburbs offering safety, and better education.

To combat these problems the newly crowned mayor has decided that his first order of business is going to be a 1% sales tax increase and to double the cost of business licenses. That is not the way to go if you need to attract and keep businesses. You don't punish them for doing business in your city, you reward them. Not to mention that an increase in sales tax is regressive and will depress sales leading to lesser revenues than estimated. Too often the governing body then raises taxes again to gets the same result. Also on the agenda is a plan to buy laptops for all children in grades 1-8 and to provide college scholarships for all graduates of Birmingham City Schools.

Larry Langford was elected Fairfield mayor in 1988. He successfully won tax increases in 1990 and 1996. He was elected Jefferson County Commission president in 2002 and persuaded the commission to raise the county's sales tax by 1 cent in 2004 for capital spending by county schools. (Data from Birmingham News) Some of Langford's previous business dealings have caught the eye of the Securities & Exchange Commission.

The mayor's proposal is aimed at generating revenue to build a domed stadium. Nobody can say who will play there or perform there but the mayor is going full speed ahead with his plan. He has also budgeted $1 million dollars for each of the 15 city councilmen and women to be used at their discretion. It sounds more like a payoff to me. At the very least you could say I am very skeptical of the new plan. The CEO of Alabama Power,a division of Southern Company, has been a vocal supporter of the dome stadium. Probably because if it fails he won't lose a dime and if it succeeds his company will be supplying power to a new stadium for years to come. He cannot lose.