That message from the legislature: Drop dead.

Jefferson County bankruptcy lawyer, Kenneth Klee.

Klee told the commission that the county’s general obligation debt is backed by the “full faith and credit” of the county. However, that faith and credit is only as good as the county has the ability to back it with taxes. The county, though, does not have that authority; the legislature does.

“This is near unprecedented in municipal financial law,” Klee said.

The legislature has made it clear that no help is coming from Montgomery he said. Now the commission must take drastic actions.

In particular, Klee recommended the county all but abandon its general obligation debt and direct that money to providing services for citizens.

However, there would be consequences. The county must now deal with a new class of creditors, and the county can expect to spend at least another year in bankruptcy, Klee said.

Fresh from a defeat Wednesday in the legislature, the commissioners’ emotions were raw going into the Thursday morning meeting. Commission President David Carrington all but called Rep. Jim Carns a hypocrite. Carrington read a list of objectives the previous commission, of which Carns was a member, could not accomplish: Downsizing, hiring a county manager, closing the county nursing home and declaring bankruptcy. The current commission has accomplished all those things, Carrington said.

Now the commission will cut further, Carrington said. Between now and Oct. 1, the county must trim down to a $180 million budget.

Rep. John Rogers.

And several Jefferson County lawmakers voted in favor of killing the bill.

In the mid afternoon, Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, proposed an amendment to the calendar to pull the bill. For about an hour, lawmakers debated the amendment. Rogers and Rep. Arthur Payne, R-Trussville, promised to filibuster the bill if it came up for a vote, and Payne said he would have every bill on the calendar read by the statehouse’s so-called robo-reader to bring the session to a crawl if it were not killed immediately.

Several Jefferson County lawmakers pleaded with their colleagues from around the state to keep the bill on the calendar and at least let it have an up or down vote.

“Please do not kill this bill with a procedural vote,” Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, pleaded.

Rep. Demtrius Newton, D-Birmingham, called the move by Rogers an act of subterfuge.

Rep. Jim Carns.

But despite the pleas from the county delegation, several of the delegation’s members voted with suburban Republicans to kill the bill.

Members voting to kill the bill included Rogers; Payne; Rep. Mary Moore, D-Birmingham; Rep. Jim Carns, R-Mountain Brook; and Mary Sue McClurkin, R-Pelham. (Correction Appended Below.)

After the vote, Jefferson County Manager Tony Petelos told Rogers that he would have to lay people off because of what Rogers had just done.

Without an occupational tax, Jefferson County will have to reduce its general fund budget to $180 million, about $40 million less than the current budget. County officials have said that, if the bill failed, the county would begin to pair down its staff through waves of layoffs between now and the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

Without a fix from the legislature it is unlikely Jefferson County will be able to emerge from bankruptcy, and the county’s bankruptcy lawyers have even said that the dissolution of county government is a possible, if unlikely, outcome.

Correction: A previous version of this story omitted Rep. Jim Carns from the Jefferson County lawmakers who voted to kill the occupational tax bill.

Alabama state Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro.

Beason recorded his “aborigines” comment while wearing a wire for the FBI in the Alabama bingo corruption investigation. The conversation, which was played in court in June, included several Republican colleagues, including former Rep. Ben Lewis (R-Dothan). Lewis refered to Greenetrack, the gambling hall located in predominately-black Greene County (which is part of Singleton’s district), and suggested the bingo hall was run by Native Americans.

“That’s y’alls Indians,” Lewis said.

“They’re aborigines, but they’re not Indians,” Beason replied, according to the transcript.

Beason apologized for that comment, and many members of the Alabama legislature, including some black lawmakers, have forgiven him. But on Wednesday, Singleton still had questions.

“I guess you and I haven’t had this conversation, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you this question: As natural born citizens in this state, who have been born in this state — and, as you so eloquently pointed out, I guess a new ethic group in this state called aborigines — how do we fit in this process?” Singleton asked Beason during a debate on changes to Beason’s controversial immigration law, now colloquially known as HB56. “Those aborigines who live in Greene County, Ala. — how do they fit in terms of this bill, and whether or not we are going to have to start showing ID and documentation everywhere we go, being that we were natural born citizens of this state?”

“The citizens of Alabama are treated the same way across the board,” Beason replied. “HB56 deals with illegal immigration…”

Singleton: “So are we going to be considered illegal immigrants at this time?”

Alabama state Sen. Scott Beason, a Gardendale Republican.

Beason: “I don’t believe so, Senator.”

Singleton: “So the aborigines in Alabama will be considered legal immigrants?”

Beason: “I believe all citizens are considered citizens in this state.”

Singleton: “Are we considered citizens under your definition of a citizen?”

Beason: “Yes sir.”

Singleton: “We are? It didn’t sound like that on your taping recording that we were citizens, so I just wanted to make sure that we were going to be citizens in this state under this law or if we were going to have to do something extra special just to get acknowledged in this state, Senator.”

Beason: “No, I think everybody’s good.”

Singleton: “Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate that because I was confused about that, and I’d been wanting to ask you that question and I was just going to wait until this immigration law to see where we fit in it, since you singled us out as a new group of folks—”

Beason: “I’m glad you asked me about it.”

Singleton: “—as a whole new group of people over here, and I just wanted to know because I didn’t realize that that’s what we were until you told me.”

Beason: “I’m glad you asked.”

Singleton: “Thank you sir, and I really appreciate it, because my folk wanted me to make sure that they got the right kind of ID and the right kind of verification so that [unintelligible] the E-Verify, they have to say that they’re aborigines or whether or not they’re just citizens of Greene County, Alabama.”

Beason: “There’s a whole list of how you prove your citizenship and how you prove your lawful status and that applies to everybody equally.”

Singleton: “Because immigration is about documentation and not about ethnic groups, correct? Would you agree with that?”

Beason agreed, and Singleton yielded to Sen. Gerald Dial (R-Lineville), to offer a substitute to Beason’s bill, which failed.

Debate over changes to Alabama’s anti-immigrant law continue. Follow @SecondFront on Twitter for live coverage.

Cooper Green paid consultants $85,000 out of accounts unknown to the Jefferson County Commission.

When a group of consultants pitched a plan to move Cooper Green Mercy Hospital’s administration and assets to a health care authority last September, Commissioner George Bowman told his colleagues on the commission that the consultants were not costing the county a penny.

But that wasn’t true.

In several meetings in recent months, Bowman has insisted that the hospital sends every invoice to the full commission for approval, but Bowman knew that was not true, either.

In short, he lied.

Just days after that committee meeting, Bowman’s office directed Cooper Green administrators to pay almost $85,000 from a hospital discretionary fund that the four other commissioners did not know existed. In a contentious and almost prosecutorial commission meeting Tuesday, Bowman said he had directed the payments, although hospital administrators indicated in the meeting that it had been someone from Bowman’s office who gave the directive, not the commissioner himself.

County Commissioner George Bowman

Since taking office in 2010, all county commissioners have favored moving the indigent care hospital to the control of a health care authority with an appointed board of health care professionals controlling its operation. Republican lawmakers have also pushed for a similar plan, and some Democrats in the legislature have said they were open to the idea.

But during the meeting last year, the commission was spooked by Bowman’s urgency, which at times seemed almost like panic. When commissioners asked Bowman for more time to consider the proposal, Bowman pushed back, insisting the county not delay a transfer. It was during that meeting on September 20 that Bowman said the consultants were not charging for their work.

In fact, the consultants had already invoiced the county on August 8, more than a month before that meeting. A day after the meeting they were paid. Pollock Financial Group received $60,000 from one of the funds and Castle Oak Securities received just shy of $25,000, commissioners have since discovered.

When Bowman told his colleagues last September that the studies for a health care authority were not costing the county, neither of the consultants nor any hospital administrators present in the meeting corrected him.

During the commission meeting Tuesday, Bowman argued that the entire commission had authorized the hospital to pay for the consultants on Sept. 27. On that day, the commission passed a resolution directing Cooper Green CEO Sandrall Hullett to formulate a new business plan for the hospital. That authorized Hullett to make the payments, Bowman said.

But that timeline is impossible, Commission President David Carrington quickly pointed out. Even if Bowman was correct that the commission authorized the payment, then it made the authorization more than a week after the checks were cut. Regardless, the resolution Bowman pointed to included no authorization to spend money, Carrington said.

Under questioning from Carrington, Hullett said the hospital had been doing its business planning in-house until Bowman directed Cooper Green to use those specific consultants.

Forgotten Fund

The county commission authorized Cooper Green’s discretionary fund in the 1980s, but knowledge of it was later lost as elections changed the makeup of the commission. An investigation into the hospital’s finances by Deputy County Manager Walter Jackson discovered the fund about a month ago, and since then the county manager’s office has tried to determine how it was used.

For the most part, the fund has been used for small expenditures, including gift baskets for employees of the month and furniture for hospital staff. Much of its funding came from donations and grants to the hospital, county officials said Tuesday.

According to Carrington, those kinds of expenses should have been included in the hospital’s general fund, and Commissioner Joe Knight accused the hospital of using the fund to hide grant money and donations from the county.

In the last year, the hospital spent about $1.1 million from the account, which he called a hospital “slush fund.”

“So basically this fund was used to circumvent the commission?” Knight asked. Cooper Green CFO John Garrett said it was not.

Throughout the questioning by the other commissioners, Bowman frequently interjected, calling the meeting a “witch hunt.”

“It appears that you are looking for a smoking gun that does not exist,” Bowman said.

When the other commissioners ignored Bowman, he interrupted them again, asking if he was invisible.

“I must be,” he said after, again, not getting a response.

Commissioner Sandra Little Brown said the dispute was why the county needed a professional manager to take charge of it affairs.

“I thought until Friday that Cooper Green didn’t write any checks, then I found out that wasn’t true,” Brown said.

Broke and Busted

For Cooper Green, the inquiry into the discretionary account was not the only issue before the commission Tuesday. The county manager’s office had discovered more than $9 million of capital needs for the hospitals, far more than the $3.5 million reported weeks ago. Without an immediate infusion of cash from the county’s general fund, the hospital faces being shut off by its vendors.

About $3.5 million of past-due invoices were older than 90 days, Jackson told the commission.

The commission voted 3-2 to give the hospital $3.6 million. Commissioners Carrington, Brown and Bowman voted for the resolution. Commissioners Joe Knight and Jimmie Stephens opposed it.

Explaining his vote, Carrington said that the hospital had $3.6 million in unpaid invoices at the beginning of the fiscal year, when the county manager took office. It would be up to Petelos’ office to get the hospital’s budget balanced, he said.

Stephens and and Knight said they could not vote to give the hospital more money until its finances were transparent and its budget balanced.

Jackson told the commission that the hospital had been on track for a $14 million deficit for the fiscal year, but cuts being made by the hospital and county manager’s office should be able to produce a balanced budget for 2013.

The timing of the hospital’s financial blunderings couldn’t be worse for the county as it is asking the Alabama Legislature to approve the Alabama Financially Distressed Counties Relief Act, which would reinstate an occupational tax for the county to right itself financially.

“We’re trying to work out a solution to the whole deal and then this — this is not going to be pretty,” Knight said.

Cooper Green paid consultants $85,000 out of accounts unknown to the Jefferson County Commission.

UPDATE: Email received from Commission President David Carrington posted below.

When a group of consultants pitched a plan to move Cooper Green Mercy Hospital’s administration to a health care authority last September, Commissioner George Bowman told his colleagues on the commission that the consultants were not costing the county a penny. However, a review by the county manager’s office has determined that the hospital paid almost $85,000 to the consultants from a discretionary fund the commission had no knowledge of.

Now commissioners say they want answers.

In addition to the consulting fees, the hospital has accumulated almost $9 million of immediate capital needs, far more than the $3.5 million reported to the commission just weeks ago.

The timing of the hospital’s financial blunderings couldn’t be worse for the county as it is asking the Alabama Legislature to approve the Alabama Financially Distressed Counties Relief Act, which would reinstate an occupational tax for the county to right itself financially.

“We’re trying to work out a solution to the whole deal and then this — this is not going to be pretty,” Commissioner Joe Knight said.

The discretionary funds were set up by the county in the 1980s to give the hospital flexibility for “petty cash” type needs, such as transportation, but the funds seem to have been used for much more than that, Finance Committee Chairman Jimmie Stephens said on Monday.

According to Knight, at least $420,000 moved through one discretionary account last year, including the $85,000 of disbursements to the consultants. Pollock Financial Group received $60,000 from one of the funds and Castle Oak Securities received just shy of $25,000, commissioners said.

When Bowman told his colleagues last September that the studies for a health care authority were not costing the county anything, neither of the consultants nor any hospital administrators present in the meeting corrected him.

According to Knight, it appears that much of the money going into the accounts came from grants the hospital had received. In those accounts it was beyond the supervision of the county commission, he said.

A spokeswoman for the hospital and employee of Bowman’s office, Yolanda Clayton, told the Birmingham News Monday afternoon that the fund had been audited and all of its transactions had been proper.

The Second Front will tweet live from the commission meeting 9 a.m. Tuesday. Keep up with the meeting as it happens by clicking “Follow” below.

Commission was told by Bowman that Cooper Green consultants were not costing #JeffCo a penny. He’ll have explaining to do Tues.

— The Second Front (@SecondFront) May 14, 2012

UPDATE: Email received from Commission President David Carrington posted below.

Here’s what I can say at this moment.

During a May 9, 2012 meeting Commissioner Knight and I had with Deputy County Manager Jackson and Revenue Director Hulsey, we were told that Cooper Green had requested multiple 2011 1099’s for payments made to persons/entities from what we later discovered was the “Cooper Green Discretionary Fund.” Upon further investigation, it appeared to Commissioner Knight and me that most, if not all, of these persons/entities should have been paid out of the County’s General Fund. This led to a further investigation of the Discretionary Fund.

On November 18, 1986, the Jefferson County Commission created a “Cooper Green Hospital Special Discretionary Fund” to receive “voluntary contributions” to be used for “providing essential transportation, nutritional support and other emergency needs resulting from an unfortunate situation.” Expenditures required the “identification of need, review and recommendation by social service workers” and stated that Cooper Green’s Chief Executive Officer was responsible for the administration of the Fund.

The Commission modified this resolution on September 22, 1992, because of a finding [at that moment in time] that the “Fund does not include County money or other public money” and shifted the responsibility for administering the Fund to Dr. Adam Robertson and Dr. Max Michael of the Jefferson Clinic, P.C.

A detailed minutes search is currently in process to identify any subsequent Commission Resolutions concerning this Fund that might have expanded or contracted its stated purpose.

Based on an initial review of the Discretionary Fund’s FY2011 receipts and expenditures, it definitely appears that this account includes disbursements outside of the view of the County Commission. For example, this Fund was used to pay professionals that were not under contract to the Jefferson County Commission, including $60,000.00 to the Pollock Financial Group and $24,981.86 to Castle Oak Securities for their work on the development of a Healthcare Authority, clearly outside of the intended mission of the Fund.

The Discretionary Fund, as well as the possible payment of some of Cooper Green’s past due invoices, will be discussed in tomorrow morning’s Commission meeting.

David

The revelation comes after the county manager’s office reviewed the hospital’s finances.

Cooper Green is running a deficit 'in the millions.'

What’s more, the commission is expected to hear in its Tuesday meeting that there are two accounts set up by a previous commission’s administrative order. Those accounts did not require previous approval from the commission for expenditures.

“It’s my understanding they were set up as sort of petty cash accounts, but they turned into something different,” Finance Committee Chairman Jimmie Stephens said Monday.

Stephens said he had been briefed on the problem and did not expect a rosy reception for the news on Tuesday.

“I’m not going to favor spending anymore good money after bad,” Stephens said. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it. Their business model is going to have to change.”

In June 2011, the commission told hospital administrators that the county could no longer supplement the hospital with its general fund, which had been crippled after losing the occupational tax.

“The council is dismayed by the reports that some of our local delegates to the AL House of Reps are working against SB 567,” Council President Mary Lee Rice wrote in an email to Weld. “We believe the local delegation should unite in support of this bill and take all steps necessary to pass it without amendment.”

An amendment attached in the House County and Municipal Government Committee would exclude residents from other counties from the tax. Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Carns, who represents parts of Vestavia Hills, is pushing lawmakers to pass a substitute bill which would put a five-year sunset on the occupational tax and unearmark funds directed to Cooper Green Mercy Hospital.

Read the full text of the proposed council resolution below.

A RESOLUTION URGING JEFFERSON COUNTY DELEGATES TO THE ALABAMA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO UNANIMOUSLY SUPPORT AND TAKE ALL STEPS NECESSARY TO PASS THE ALABAMA FINANCIALLY DISTRESSED COUNTIES ACT.

WHEREAS, the government of Jefferson County, Alabama is facing a fiscal crisis which severely jeopardizes services to residents of the county and imposes serious financial burdens on the county’s municipalities, and

WHEREAS, Jefferson County’s significant revenue shortfall results from a 2010 judicial ruling that its occupational tax was unconstitutional because the Alabama Legislature improperly advertised the enabling legislation, and

WHEREAS, in 2011 the Alabama Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling that the Alabama Legislature improperly advertised the enabling legislation, and

WHEREAS, the current Jefferson County Commission has worked diligently to trim operational costs and increase efficiencies by hiring a county manager, reducing more than 800 personnel positions, selling the county nursing home, and increasing budgetary accountability, and

WHEREAS, the Jefferson County Commission in January, 2012 requested the Alabama Legislature to reinstate the occupational tax, which had been generating $66 million per year for county operations, and

WHEREAS, the Alabama Senate has passed SB 567, the Alabama Financially Distressed Counties Act, which will generate as much as $62 million annually for Jefferson County operations, and

WHEREAS, this statewide legislation is awaiting action in the Alabama House of Representatives, and

WHEREAS, the actions of the Jefferson County local delegation will have significant impact on the outcome of the House vote, as other state representatives look to follow their lead, and

WHEREAS, it is reported that certain local legislators are actively working against the bill in conjunction with legislators from outside Jefferson County, and

WHEREAS, the Vestavia Hills City Council is dismayed by these reports and believes that passage of the bill is essential to the provision of county services to our residents, to the financial well-being of our municipality, and to local economic development, and

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF VESTAVIA HILLS, ALABAMA urges Jefferson County’s delegation to unite in support of the Senate’s Alabama Financially Distressed Counties Act and to take all steps necessary to ensure its passage, without amendment, in the Alabama House of Representatives.

This Resolution Number 4301 shall become effective immediately upon adoption and approval.

Rep. Jim Carns voted to repeal Jefferson County's occupational tax. As a commissioner he struggled to deal with the consequences. Today, the new commission says he's gumming up the works again.

First there was Jim Carns the legislator. As a member of the Alabama House until 2006, that Jim Carns voted to repeal the Jefferson County occupational tax. The repeal ping-ponged around Alabama courts until the Supreme Court decided in 2009 that the repeal was in fact valid — breaking the county’s financial back over the legislature’s knee.

Then there was Jim Carns the commissioner. As a county commissioner from 2006 through 2010, Carns approved budgets that supported recurring expenses with one-time infusions of revenue. The last general fund budget Carns approved was $312 million. (If the legislature does not reinstate the occupational tax, the county’s general fund budget for next year will be $180 million, and even with an occupational tax, it would be about $240 million.) And Carns not only voted for the $312 million budget, he shaped it and made the motion to pass it in a special-called commission meeting.

Today, after a special election last year, there is again Jim Carns the legislator, who is now trying to substitute a bill to help the county right itself financially with another bill that does not provide the county with a clear path out of Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

On Wednesday, Commissioner Jimmie Stephens lit a firestorm with an email accusing Carns and Rep. Paul DeMarco of sabotaging the county’s efforts to get the Alabama Distressed Counties Financial Relief Act, sponsored by Sen. Jabo Waggoner and Rep. Jack Williams, through the Alabama Legislature.

“It was apparent yesterday when Rep. DeMarco and Rep. Carns were actively working with and petitioning legislators from outside the county to kill Sen. Waggoner’s bill that there is an organized effort to literally shut all county services down,” Stephens wrote. “They have now moved from sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing to help the county to actively working against a solution for Jefferson County.”

Stephens said that he saw Carns and DeMarco working other lawmakers to substitute Waggoner’s bill with another, which would have put a five-year sunset on any tax increase, denying the county a long-term revenue fix it needs to resolve the county’s problems and get it out of bankruptcy. Carns has called Stephens’ allegation a lie.

I was in the same House County and Municipal Government Committee meeting, and what I saw was generally consistent with Stephens’ account. Committee member Rep. Dickie Drake did all the work, but he did so with Carns directing him like a third base coach signaling a base runner. First Carns nodded to Drake, who then motioned for the substitute bill. When the substitute failed to pass, Carns pointed to Drake, who motioned to carry the bill over three legislative days, which would have killed the bill for the regular session. That motion failed as well.

County Manager Tony Petelos says he has asked to see a copy of the substitute bill but has not been able to get one.

When I spoke with Carns on Friday, he called Stephens’ comments ridiculous. He asked me if I saw him directing any lawmakers in the committee meeting. I told him I saw him signaling Drake. Carns then said that Drake is a freshman lawmaker, and like a lot of freshmen, he needs help learning to get things through committee. (It didn’t seem to work, as neither the substitute nor the carry-over passed.)

Unlike Stephens, I don’t believe Carns thinks he’s trying to kill the county. Rather, he thinks he’s trying to save it, as does DeMarco. But at the beginning of last week, the county’s best apparent chance was Waggoner’s bill, and Tuesday, Carns did work to kill that bill.

The substitute bill would, in effect, be identical to a combination of local bills already advertised, Carns said. It would authorize or mandate several things:

• the creation of a financial oversight board appointed by the governor to direct the county’s spending;
• the reinstatement of an occupational tax which would sunset after five years;
• the unearmarking the roughly $45 million per year in the indigent care fund so it could be redirected elsewhere;
• the creation of a healthcare authority which would close Cooper Green and replace it with a network of outpatient clinics.
• the requirement that 30 percent of all occupational tax revenues be spent on consultants.

Carns says the substitute is the only bill that could pass the House. Perhaps, but there are things that are deeply troubling about this approach.

First, input from the county into this proposal has been virtually non-existent. When asked about that, Carns replied the county has not been forthcoming itself, especially with financial data. What’s more, he points to meetings called by Sen. Waggoner between county and state officials. Those meetings went nowhere, he said.

Second, the proposal all but says to hell with bipartisanship and regional cooperation. Cooper Green is a sacred cow for many Jefferson County Democrats, both on the commission and in the legislature. This bill gores their sacred cow and serves it with a plunger down the county commission’s throat.

That kind of action by force would deeply divide the county and further complicate its problems, Petelos said Friday.

“I think you would see Trayvon Martin-like protests,” he said.

It’s clear that Cooper Green has financial problems that could cause the indigent care hospital to collapse from its own financial mismanagement. On Tuesday, the commission is expected to hear the hospital’s financial woes are worse than previously reported, with around $9 million in immediate capital needs, and accounts that were not approved or supervised by the commission. Something has to change, and early in the legislative session some Democrats had shown a willingness to reform the indigent health care in Jefferson County, which is mandated by state law.

“Everybody gets caught up in the name ‘Cooper Green,’” Sen. Linda Coleman told The Birmingham News in March. “Those of us who are trying to save Cooper Green, it’s not so much about Cooper Green. It’s about the services they provide and the population it serves.”

But if Democrats are going to sell a bipartisan solution to Cooper Green’s problems, they will need time to convince their constituents that they aren’t being flimflammed. Carns and DeMarco’s substitute bill ignores that need, and at the same time, it sugarcoats it with a tax sunset to make it palatable to their own constituencies.

Carns and DeMarco have said they are fighting for a comprehensive solution to the county’s problems that would solve them once and for all. While ambitious — perhaps overly so — their plan has all the parts and pieces to achieve that goal except one — the long-term revenue stream the county needs to get out of bankruptcy.

Clearly, Waggoner and Williams’ proposal would face strong opposition, too. Lawmakers from outside the county have already amended it to exclude their constituents. Without that amendment, those same lawmakers might muster enough opposition to kill the bill.

But there is little evident reason to believe Carns and DeMarco’s alternative, which would tax residents outside the county, would not face the same opposition. Add to those suburban Republicans and anti-tax Tea Party types the House Democrats, particularly those in the Jefferson County delegation fighting to preserve the indigent care fund, and you have a one-two knockout punch.

Again, Carns genuinely believes he is trying to save the county. On Friday, he said he had given five years of his life to the county — one to run for commission and four to serve there. And he says he admires what the new county commission has done since he left.

“I think they have done a great job,” he said. “If they don’t like me, that’s fine. I’m not running in a popularity contest.”

But in some respects, he is — not with the commissioners, but among his constituents. If you polled his district on the occupational tax, 90 percent would oppose it, he said. I asked Carns about the elected official’s dilemma — whether to do what is popular, even if it is not what the public needs, or to do what the public needs, even if it costs the politician elected office. Carns said that is a problem every elected official struggles with.

The county commission has its solution to the dilemma — self sacrifice. Almost to a person, the commissioners have said they would rather fix the county’s problems and be kicked out in the next election than let the county continue to suffer or die.

“Give us the authority and we’ll take the heat,” Commissioner Joe Knight said a week ago. “If people don’t like it, then we’ll all be one-term commissioners, but at least we will have fixed the problem we were sent here to fix.”

That’s refreshing coming from an elected official, but it didn’t compare to the shock I got from something Carns said. Near the end of our conversation, Carns said he wished the Alabama Supreme Court has never overturned the county’s occupational tax.

“I wish the occupational tax had not been stripped by the Supreme Court,” he said. “I hate that.”

Only it wasn’t the Supreme Court that killed the occupational tax. It was the Alabama Legislature.

Carns should know. He voted for it.

The Messenger Shoots Back is a column about political culture.