Lawmakers are continuing to disagree over how much of the state's oil spill settlement funds should go to road projects and how much to the Gulf coast.
The roadblock threatened to doom legislation doling out the settlement dollars.
A Senate budget committee was scheduled to vote today on legislation to use $191 million for coastal road projects and $450 million for state debt repayment.
However, Sen. Arthur Orr said the money was intended to compensate the entire state. Orr proposed to pay back all state debts, and use the remaining $100 million for road projects across the state.
The committee must approve the bill by midnight or it is dead for the session.
The Huntsville Police Department is hosting a memorial service for officers killed in the line of duty throughout the department’s history. The ceremony is the inaugural event in what officers hope will become a yearly remembrance.
The service will take place at the Fallen Officers Memorial. The memorial was made possible by community donations. It depicts two officers paying their respects to the fallen.
Lieutenant Stacy Bates is the Public Information Officer for the Huntsville Police Department. He says the memorial service is a way for the department to reach out to families of late officers.
“It’s also a way to kind of be there and support the families of these officers. Even the ones that were killed back years and years ago still have descendants and relatives that still have somewhat of an impact knowing that they had a relative that was killed in the line of duty. So this is a way to honor that, to be there for those family members and let them know that they’re not forgotten.”
The ceremony is open to the public and will begin at five o’clock tomorrow evening.
A new Bluegrass exhibit opened today at the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.
The exhibit features instruments and pictures of inductees to the Hall of Fame associated with the bluegrass genre
David Boley* is the president of the Alabama Bluegrass Music Association and the executive director of the Alabama Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. He also designed the exhibit. He says it is meant to celebrate the history of Bluegrass in Alabama.
“The history of Bluegrass here in Alabama, it goes way back. Horsepence Forty was probably one of the very first Bluegrass festivals around that people throughout the country and world patterned their Bluegrass festivals after and they’re still going the same way.”
The exhibit kicks off a summer of events surrounding the genre.