Comprising twenty-eight percent of the University of Alabama’s student body, the Greeks (members of fraternities and sororities) are known for leaving Bryant-Denny Stadium as early as half-time at a Crimson Tide football game. They have traditionally filled up whole blocs of the student seating section, deserting their seats to leave the student section with the appearance of an ugly clear-cut swath amidst a thriving rainforest.

The Greeks now own the dubious honor of controlling Tuscaloosa’s District Four. In 1997 an undergraduate student who was President of the University’s Inter-fraternity Council Lee Garrison was able to secure a seat on the Tuscaloosa  City Council with the help of The Machine Vote at the University. Coming from a well known Tuscaloosa family Garrison garnered support from families living in its Historic District neighborhoods, as well as the support by University students in the Greek system.

In his first year on the Council Garrison attempted to use The Machine’s vote to prevent the School Board from becoming an elected body by adding a “straw poll” on alcohol use to the referendum on electing the board. His last minute effort to register students was the subject of a 1998 story in the Tuscaloosa News in which the AEA representaive Walt Maddox, who successfully ran for a seat on the Council in 2001 and for Tuscaloosa’s Mayor in 2009, was quoted.

“It’s no coincidence, Maddox said, “that the nonbinding referendum votes include alcohol sales. That would be the single most motivating factor to bring college students to the polls. It is also no coincidence that Mr. Garrison. who serves on the City Council, is registering voters to vote not only on the alcohol issue but also on the elected board referendum.  I would imagine that Mr. Garrison is instructing the students to vote against an elected school board.”

Garrison was re-elected to the Council for three more terms, in both 2001 and 2009 without opposition. In 2005 he told the Tuscaloosa News, “I want to continue to build on the relationship that we’ve established in the University of Alabama fringe area between non-student residents and rental property owners.”  He became a fixture at meetings of the Original City Association  (OCA), an organization representing Tuscaloosa’s Historical District.

This year Garrison had decided to leave the City Council and run for Chair of the School Board. As a parting gift to District 4 he helped realign its boundaries to make it an even more student populated district. A narrow sliver of its neighborhoods comprised of “non-student residents” was sliced off. Matt Calderone, who had been elected to the Student Government Association by The Machine in 2012, inherited Garrison’s District 4  Council seat. He was unopposed.

Political operative and long-time Garrison ally and Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity alumnus Mike Echols, Chair of Friends of Lee Garrison in 2013, formed the Educate Tuscaloosa Political Action Committee ( ET PAC ) as a part of a strategy to take over Tuscaloosa’s School Board. All five challengers to the School Board incumbents were given the lion’s share of the over $70,000 raised by the ET PAC. Three candidates for the School Board were given over 85% of their funding by the PAC. Despite the largesse poured into the coffers of the challenging candidates by the ET PAC and large amounts of  money from other sources only Cason Kirby in District 4 was successful in unseating an incumbent.

Cason Kirby, who received over $14,000 from the ET PAC alone, was victorious in his race against School Board incumbent Kelly Horwitz, but not because of the size of his campaign chest. His win can be attributed solely to the support of The Machine. The District 4 polling place was swamped by students, many of whom were wearing tee-shirts commemorating the Greek Fest, the Old Row or displaying other Greek themes. They came from Tennessee, Oregon, Georgia, California and other states to vote for candidates who were running in a  local school board race in Alabama. The students were required to return to their Houses wearing the “I voted” stickers that they were given after voting. One person sympathetic to Horwitz said that she wished she could have stood outside the polling place with a roll of stickers and handed them out to students to save them the trouble of casting ballots.

According to a poll worker some students were so unfamiliar with the voting process that, once they were checked off the list of registered voters, they forgot to pick up their ballots. Others left their drivers license, which many had used as an ID, on the tables where they marked their ballot. Some showed up not knowing if they were registered in Tuscaloosa or in another city. There were an unusually large number of “provisional ballots” cast due to uncertainties about voter eligibility.

Most of the students who voted for Kirby likely also cast their ballots for Lee Garrison. At the District 4 polling place many of the students wearing Kirby and Garrison tee-shirts were unable to vote or had to use “provisional ballots.” Only a handful of voters who were not obviously students were unable to cast an official ballot.  The reported final vote at District 4 was out of a total of 725 votes cast Kirby received 399. In 2009 only 358 total votes were cast. (The citywide turnout for Tuscaloosa’s municipal elections was greater than usual with 8,627 voters as opposed to 3,127 in the last election.)

Supporters of Kirby and Horwitz held signs and balloons along Paul W. Bryant Drive as stretch limos and chartered buses pulled up to disgorge student voters at the Calvary Baptist Church Annex voting location for District 4. Kirby and Horwitz backers handed out campaign literature. Unique incentives for student support for Garrison and Kirby were reported, including free booze.

Garrison probably received a few votes from a number of OCA loyalists who, unlike the students, more than likely voted for Horwitz instead of Kirby. The fact that Garrison was part of a plan to take over the School Board by gerrymandering his district, by flooding the election with PAC money and by using The Machine did not outweigh their personal relationship with him. Nor were they influenced by the photograph taken of Garrison in 2003 at a Halloween party wearing a mask with a penis nose that was widely distributed before the election, claims made by his former wife of alcoholism, drug abuse and fits of rage or his ties to a indicted crime figure.

Garrison sent a message to Tuscaloosa on Election Day: “Dear Tuscaloosa, As many of you may know, Stan Pate has launched a vicious and untrue personal attack on me and my family. My response is simply this, I pray for Stan. I pray for God to help him in only the way that God can heal. My family is very upset over what he has done, but we forgive him for his actions and I pray that Tuscaloosa will do the same. We all are sinners and we all make mistakes in life.  God Bless, Lee Garrison”

It is rumored that, should Mayor Maddox put in a bid for the Alabama Governorship, Lee Garrison will run for Mayor of Tuscaloosa. If he wins The Machine will truly own Tuscaloosa.

According to The Legal Schnauzer’s “Here Is How A Pair of Politicos From Tuscaloosa Have Ties To Gambino and Genovese Crime Families,” there’s a connection between Lee and Jessica Garrison and organized crime. Garrison was rumored to have had a “gambling problem.”  And it may go beyond placing bets.

The Legal Schnauzer is concerned about what kind of person Lee and Jessica Garrison chose as a business partner:

Republican operative Jessica Medeiros Garrison and her former husband, Tuscaloosa city councilman Lee Garrison, are partners with a man named Erik Davis Harp in a real-estate venture called Margaritaville, LLC.  The company was formed in 2004, with a registered office address of 1201 Greensboro, Avenue, Tuscaloosa, AL 35401.

Should the public be concerned about this? Well, the Garrisons are significant political players in our state. Jessica Garrison served as campaign manager for Luther Strange’s successful 2010 campaign for attorney general and now works for the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and the Balch Bingham law firm. Lee Garrison has served on the Tuscaloosa City Council since 1997 and currently is running for chair of the Tuscaloosa City School Board, with that spot to be determined in municipal elections tomorrow.

A report at ny1.com identifies  Fafone as an associate of the Gambino family and describes him delivering more than a half million dollars in winnings to one gambler. Fafone’s No. 1 associate in the enterprise, it appears, was Erik Davis Harp . . . originally from Tuscaloosa, Alabama . . .

That the whole sordid enterprise has roundabout connections to Tuscaloosa–and Jessica and Lee Garrison–might also be considered “staggering.”

The Legal Schnauzer blog has had a long standing interest in School Board Chair candidate Lee Garrison’s former wife Jessica, who allegedly has had an extramarital affair with the Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange. As a consequence Lee Garrison has become a person of interest.

First came a blog “Photograph Of Lee Garrison Wearing A Penis Nose Shows Up In Time To Enliven Tuscaloosa Elections” about a strange Halloween mask worn by Lee Garrison, years after he was elected to the Tuscaloosa City Council. 

The FranklinStoveBlog was even cited. “An infusion of corporate cash has helped inject the municipal races with an unusually combative tone.  It even has sparked the creation of The Franklin Stove Blog (FSB) The blog’s views appear to run counter to those of the corporate-backed candidates. A post dated August 18 is titled ‘Cash Soaked Election Covered In The News.’ The author of FSB says a win for the corporate candidates would be a victory for The Machine, the shadowy group that has dominated student politics at UA for decades.”

The Legal Schnauzer blog asked, “What does the Penis Nose Scandal say about Lee Garrison’s qualifications to serve as chair of the school board in a major Alabama city. We will let readers–and Tuscaloosa voters–decide for themselves. Perhaps it points to some unflattering assertions that Jessica Garrison raised in the couple’s custody case.”

The blog then cites the 2011 Petition For Modification Of Custody which claims that: “The father has repeatedly exhibited a willingness to forfeit time with his son to pursue recreational and social activities that often involve excessive drinking and late nights. He also admittedly has had a gambling problem and takes controlled medications for which he has no prescription or medical need. The father also has a bad temper and a consistent tendency to rage, often in the presence of the child. Moreover, the father and his wife are cigarette smokers and have pets, both of which contribute to the child’s ongoing allergies.”

The blog concludes, “For now, the Penis Nose Scandal has helped enliven a contest that already was plenty lively.”

Another Legal Schnauzer blog also involves Lee Garrison.  “Ex Aide To Luther Strange Has Business Connections To Man Indicted In Panama Gambling Investigation” concerns itself with ties  to a gambling figure that are shared by Lee Garrison and his former wife Jessica.

The Legal Schnauzer Blog reports: “Jessica Medeiros Garrison and her former husband, Tuscaloosa city councilman Lee Garrison, are partners with Erik Davis Harp in Margaritaville, LLC. Harp was among 30 people indicted in October 2009 in connection with what one press outlet called ‘a gambling ring with ties to organized crime.’ Harp was 36 years old at the time of the indictment, and his address was listed as Las Vegas, Nevada. But his roots are in Tuscaloosa, and he apparently met the Garrisons while all three attended the University of Alabama.

“A clear path can be drawn from Erik Davis Harp to Jessica Garrison (and Lee Garrison) to Luther Strange. That should raise questions about Lee Garrison’s suitability for a spot on the Tuscaloosa School Board. And it should raise extremely serious questions about Luther Strange, Jessica Garrison, and their close associates . . . who have ridden to power on claims that they are morally opposed to gambling.”
 

The graph Illustration by Anthony Bratina  was in the Tuscaloosa News accompanying an article about the extraordinary amount of cash being poured into the coffers of candidates for the Tuscaloosa School Board election. The article puts an emphasis on PAC contributions. But for Lee Garrison over half of his contributions come from PACs as well as businesses/ corporations, not from individuals. Garrison’s largest contribution from an individual came from Drummond shareholder Barbara Anderson who gave him $3,000.

The Chamber of Commerce’s CEO Jim Page as a guest columnist in The Tuscaloosa News wrote about the Chamber’s Adopt-A-School program, saying that his business advocacy organization had been interested in schools long before the current election. He doesn’t mention the Chamber’s recent interest in electing School Board members. “The Chamber will recruit seasoned business leaders to seek elected office on local boards of education, beginning in 2013, to significantly improve the policy-making, financial management and operations of local public school districts.”

The Tuscaloosa News article by Jamon Smith “School board races being backed by cash” reported on the School Board race:

By far, more money has been raised for candidates in the 2013 Tuscaloosa City Board of Education election than any other in the city school board’s history. And businesses, in the form of business-funded PACs and direct business contributions, have been responsible for most of the money flowing into the campaign coffers of the non-incumbents.

According to campaign finance reports filed by the candidates as of Aug. 9, more than $181,000 has been contributed to the campaigns of the 13 candidates in the 2013 race, which is more than the total funds raised in the three previous school board elections combined.

The five incumbents facing challengers in the 2013 race — Harry Lee of District 5, Marvin Lucas of District 6, James Minyard of District 1, Erskine Simmons of District 7 and Kelly Horwitz of District 4 — have raised a combined total of about $14,000, which is 8 percent of the more than $167,000 that the non-incumbents have raised combined.

Individually, every non-incumbent — except for board chair candidate Denise Hills — has raised more money than all the incumbents combined.

About $96,800 has been contributed to the non-incumbents from PACs, comprising about 58 percent of their combined total contributions.

As of Aug. 9, Hills was the only non-incumbent who hadn’t received PAC money.

None of the incumbents have received money from PACs.

District 4 challenger Cason Kirby, District 1 challenger Earnestine Young, District 7 challenger Renwick Jones, District 5 challenger Joe Gattozzi and District 6 challenger John Lollar have each received more than 86 percent of their campaign contributions from PACs.

Board chair candidate Lee Garrison has received about 26 percent of his campaign contributions from PACs and Norman Crow, who is running unopposed in District 3, has received about 6 percent of his contributions from PACs.

The five PACs that have contributed to the non-incumbents’ campaigns so far are the Educate Tuscaloosa PAC, NUCOR PAC, Pride PAC II, T-Town PAC II and the Alabama Builders PAC.

The Educate Tuscaloosa PAC, created in April and chaired by Echols, has by far been the largest contributor to the challengers’ campaigns.

From April to Aug. 9, the PAC has raised about $108,250.

As of Aug. 9, Garrison had received contributions from 27 businesses which have given him about $16,400.

By Lisa P. Elliot, published in Tuscaloosa News 10-21-1998:

TUSCALOOSA- City Councilman Lee Garrison is getting hundreds of university students to register to vote in the November 3 Tuscaloosa referendum on an elected school board.

Garrison delivered an estimated total of 700 voter registration forms to the board of registrars in two trips this week, one just before 5 PM Monday and a second early Tuesday morning, said Margie Fields, Chairman of the Board of Registrars.

Garrison, a first-term Councilman who was elected in part because he marshaled the votes of University sorority and fraternity members, has drawn criticism for his latest move from the Tuscaloosa County Board of Registrars and those campaigning for an elected school board.

Some who favor an elected city school board, which is one of the referendum questions on the November 3 ballot, believe the Tuscaloosa City Council placed a straw poll on alcohol sales on the ballot to draw out student voters who would help defeat an elected school board.

“It’s no coincidence that the nonbinding referendum votes include alcohol sales. That would be the single most motivating factor to bring college students to the polls,” said Walter Maddox, local director of the Alabama Educational Association.

The state teachers union who helped draft the legislation calling for the referendum is campaigning for an elected board in Tuscaloosa. “It is also no coincidence that Mr. Garrison. who serves on the City Council, is registering voters to vote not only on the alcohol issue but also on the elected board referendum,” Maddox said. “I would imagine that Mr. Garrison is instructing the students to vote against an elected school board.”

Garrison has made no secret that he favors and appointed city school board, but he denied that he has told students how to vote.

“Right now there is not a student position on the issue, but I plan to educate them the night before the election at a town hall meeting.” Garrison said. “I will also be publishing editorials to show the pros and cons in the newsletter that I send to the voters in my district every four months. ”

He dismissed the criticism that students have no interest in the city schools because they don’t have children in the system, noting that many students stay in Tuscaloosa and raise their families here when they get older.

“When my kids are going through the system 10 to 20 years from now what we decide on November 3 will definitely impact them,” Garrison said.

“The stack of registration forms itself is between six and seven inches tall. And that’s a problem,” Fields said, “because all of the forms need to be entered into the computer by midnight on Friday in order to print the the voter list needed before the first day of absentee voting begins at 8 a.m. Saturday.”

Counting Fields there are three registrars and one clerk working in the Tuscaloosa County Board of Registrars.

“We will have to work, work, work until they are all in,” Fields said, “if we cannot get them all in, there may be registered voters who will not appear on the voter list.”

There are only 12 blanks on the voter registration form to be typed in. Fields explained, but it takes a long time because the registrars have to look up voting districts for each of the races by hand.  Depending on the address, that could include congressional, senate, legislative, school board, state board of education, county commission and city council districts, as well as voting wards and boxes.

But Garrison said that’s part of the job.

“They have a busy time from what I understand, every two years when election time comes up,” Garrison said. “And it’s going to be busy. In any profession there are times of the year when people are more busy and that’s just their job and they should just deal with it.”

Garrison said Fields made him feel he was doing something wrong when he dropped the forms off.

“When I walked in there to give them the form she said, ‘Why didn’t you get them in earlier?’,” he said.

“If anything they should be happy that I am doing the voter drive,” he said. “They shouldn’t deter anybody from registering. I’m sure it’s not the attitude that the state office would want them to portray, or any other taxpayer that pays their salary would want.”

The head of Alabama voter registration says that’s not the issue “We’re all for them being registered, absolutely,” State Director of Voter Registration Anita Tatum said. “The only thing is that the Tuscaloosa County registers are very short-handed and I think the board of registrars is staffed with only three registrars and one clerk.  Montgomery, the fourth largest county has five clerks.

“This close to the election they are going to get an influx of people who register to vote anyway. We are one of the only states in the United States with a 10-day registration cut off, ” Tatum said. “Make no mistake, we are thrilled to death to have the additional voters. But it would have been a lot more considerate if the forms have been brought in sooner. ”

Fields said a voter registration application should be turned in the day after the applicant signs it, noting that several brought in by Garrison has been signed in September and early October. Registar Cleo Knox said she personally asked Garrison to make sure the forms didn’t come in at the last minute.

Garrison said he didn’t purposely wait, explaining that he had other people working for him to do the registration and that he only got all the forms back on Friday. “I have begged my people to get them in as soon as possible because of the registration deadline,” he said.

Fields said that it appears most of the registrations turned in at the last minute were from college students. Many of the addresses are fraternity and sorority houses, UA dorms or housing near campus. She noted that most of the birthdates fall between the 1978 and 1980, which would put the voters between 18 and 20 years old.

The board has registered 1,178 voters between October 1 and Tuesday to bring the total number of registered voters in the county to 82,827. Fields said feels said there was a little more than the number registered for the Democratic and Republican primaries. At the end of May, Tuscaloosa County had a 82,603 for the primary elections.

If voter turnout is low as it would be in an election plagued with confusion about where to vote and whether to vote at all, the 700 votes of students could be crucial.

“I hope the citizens of Tuscaloosa will not have their future decided by students who will bloc vote an issue without understanding its complexities,” said the AEA’s Maddox. “we’ve been through this once before with this district seat and I hope he wouldn’t try that again.”

Garrison said he will organize a shuttle service to help students get to the polling places.

“There’s no telling what the students can do,” Garrison said, “but there is power in numbers.  And it remains untold whether the couple boxes in the student areas will make a difference in the outcome of this election.”

There may be some over-riding concerns about parking but on Tuesday the City Council may approve the re-zoning that will be necessary to allow Campus Crest Developments to build a student housing project at the site of the old Waterworks. The Tuscaloosa News has yet to cover one aspect of the story though, even though one of its reporters was given a stack of papers that was presented to the members of the Planning and Zoning Commission by someone during the public comments. There was page after page detailing the unsavory past of Campus Crest CEO Ted Rollins.

The Legal Schnauzer ran a story about CEO Ted Rollins:

How Will Alabama’s Crimson Tide Nation React To CEO Ted Rollins And His History As A Child Abuser?

How will Crimson Tide nation take to a corporate executive who is entering their environs with a documented history as a child abuser? How will that square with UA’s notion of family values?

We are about to find out because Charlotte-based Campus Crest Communities is seeking approval to build a student-housing complex near the University of Alabama campus. It will be known as The Grove at Tuscaloosa, and the 228-unit complex is planned for Fifth Street Northeast, at the site of the former Riverview Water Treatment plant.

The little Post Office Box that is used by many candidates and political action committees looks pretty innocuous but it is at the center of much of that which passes for  politics in Tuscaloosa’s ruling establishment.

It was used on the school board campaigns of Lee Garrison and Norman Crow. It was used by Governor Robert Bentley. It was used by the Educate Tuscaloosa PAC. Among the ten or so other political action committees that have used it are the KAW, Capital, Tusco, T-Town, T-Town II, and Pride II PACs, which are all associated with The Franklin Resources Groups’ Michael H. Echols. The Franklin Resources Group is a Montgomery lobbying firm that is deeply involved in local politics.

Chances are that if you’ve received a robo call from Montgomery for a local candidate it originated from Franklin.  Or if you’ve received a postcard in the mail the P.O. Box is to be found on it. You may have seen it on a website. All the incumbents on the Tuscaloosa City Council have received money from PACs that Michael Echols is the Chair or Treasurer of. Three challengers for School Board races have in fact derived almost all of their funding from the Educate Tuscaloosa PAC, which Michael Echols chairs.

Tuscaloosa’s Mayor Walter Maddox has always received support  from members of the West Alabama Chamber of Commerce. In his  uncontested election this year he raised more than $236,000, including contributions of $5000 from ROAR LLC (which does business as the College Station Properties), $3000 from The Builders Group of West Alabama, $5000 from Pritchett Moore and $5000 from Hudson Poole.

Manager of College Station Properties Jay Evans, The Builders Group’s President Brock Corder, President of Prudential Pritchett-Moore Wilson Moore and the Owner of Hudson-Poole Jewelers Gene Poole are all on the West Alabama Chamber of Commerce’s 2013 Board of Directors.

In 2012 the City of Tuscaloosa turned over its Office of Economic Development functions to the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama. The Chamber’s CEO Jim Page has been at City Council meetings as a booster for most of the big development projects. The Chamber’s business journal The Rising Tide emphasizes the importance of student-centered developments and Tuscaloosa’s “college area” economy. However the city’s  Student Housing Taskforce  is now looking at the surplus of student housing.

The City has taken steps to allow The Chamber to use the storm damaged armory property on 10th Avenue for a new business innovation center. The city is currently working to obtain the land from the Department of Defense for the EDGE business incubator. Funding for the property’s purchase, which will come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant disaster relief program, would also be used as a local match on an ADECA grant for the center. A criteria for a use of the armory land is that it would benefit the public. That the use of this property by the Chamber would satisfy that condition is not obvious to every one.