Birmingham BOE meeting given over to community speakers

On any other Tuesday, the Birmingham Board of Education's agenda would top 10 pages. But today, their agenda was one side of one page.

Since the state has taken over the school system, there is literally no work for the Birmingham BOE to do. There was no new or old business on today's agenda, but the BOE did leave the "community voice" section.

The two minute limit usually given to community voice speakers was thrown out today and speakers were essentially allowed to talk as long as they liked -- and they had a lot to say.

Two state representatives were among today's speakers. Mary Moore and John Rogers spoke critically of the state's takeover. Rogers said that the local board should let the state do what they will because their plan will fail, and any blame will be put on them.

Several other speakers called for Birmingham Superintendent Dr. Craig Witherspoon to be fired immediately and questioned why Witherspoon wasn't at today's meeting.

Others criticized Ed Richardson, who is leading the state takeover. They wanted to know how much money he would be making during this time and criticized his performance in the takeover of other school systems.

Richardson attended today's meeting, listening and taking notes, but he did not speak.

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