The Frequency

Architectural plans dated July 29 place ALDI Store No. 195 at 3418 20th Ave., in Valley’s Village Square shopping center. The drawings put the store in an inline retail space between Dollar Tree and World Finance, on the same row as CATO, It’s Fashion and Hibbett Sports, in what appears to be the former Badcock Furniture space. The City Menus reported the plans this week. ALDI has not announced a construction start or a grand opening date.

Village Square has been filling in since 2024, when Marshalls, Five Below, Petsense and Express Oil were all announced for the center. Marshalls announced its grand opening in April 2025. The City Menus reports more than 19,000 vehicles pass the center daily on 20th Avenue.

Most of what has opened there so far is something you buy once a season. A grocery store is something you buy every week.

Plans are not a lease, and a lease is not a store.

Amendment 1 (SB 271, Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville) sets a procedure for filling a lieutenant governor vacancy occurring more than 60 days before the next general election, and lets the Legislature set compensation for the lieutenant governor and legislative officers by joint resolution. It passed both chambers unanimously. Givhan said the gap surfaced when questions arose over a gubernatorial candidate’s residency: “No one automatically becomes lieutenant governor.” The office sat empty from 2017 to 2019 after Gov. Robert Bentley resigned. Givhan called the fix “kind of a Band-Aid approach.”

Amendment 2 (HB 380, Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur) creates a process for county school boards to consolidate into multi-county boards. The State Board of Education would conduct an impact study first. If 25 percent of registered voters file written protests, the merger goes to a public vote at the next general election. It passed the House 96-2 and the Senate unanimously.

Collins pitched it as efficiency: “put a little bit less in administration, get some economies of scale, but mostly be able to put more money back into the classroom.” Education funding researcher Zahava Stadler was less certain, warning that “simply combining two struggling districts may not do much to transform students’ opportunities.”

Amendment 2 addresses county school boards. Chambers County Schools is a county system; Lanett runs its own city system. How the amendment would treat that split is not spelled out in the ballot summary. Chambers County has already worked through a consolidation debate of its own over closing LaFayette High and combining the county’s high schools, so voters here have heard the arguments before they reach the ballot. Nothing is proposed now. The amendment builds the road, not the trip.

Fair Ballot Commission chair Patrick Moody emphasized the protest provision: “We want people to know that there is a way for people to protest this action.”

Amendment 3 (HB 511, Rep. Reed Ingram) requires school boards to adopt a policy calling for daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and permits student-initiated, student-led prayer. Students who object to either may leave the classroom without penalty. It passed the House 94-4 and the Senate unanimously.

Amendment 4 (SB 5, Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale) requires schools to broadcast or perform the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner” once a week, using the Library of Congress-archived version or school-approved musicians. It drew the only real dissent of the four: 22-5 in the Senate, 75-27 in the House.

Absentee voting opened September 9. Applications are due by mail October 27 and in person October 29. Hand-delivered ballots are due by close of business November 2; mailed ballots by noon on Election Day. Photo ID is required either way.

A 2026 survey from the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama finds the state almost exactly divided on its school voucher program: 48 percent approve, 50 percent disapprove. On spending, 42 percent said the state puts too much into vouchers, 24 percent said the amount is about right and 17 percent said too little.

The program is growing regardless. The CHOOSE Act received $101 million in fiscal year 2026 and $236 million in fiscal 2027. The Alabama State Department of Education went from $733 million to $772 million over the same span.

Applications for 2026-27 covered 48,927 students across 29,341 applications, up about 7,200 from the prior year. Among applicants, 43.6 percent were already in private school and 27.4 percent were homeschooled. Public and charter school students made up 18.3 percent.

The approved awards run the same direction. Of 34,124 students approved for 2026-27, roughly three-fourths came from private school or homeschool programs. Transfers out of public schools fell, to 4,598 from 5,176 in the program’s first year. Students at participating schools receive $7,000; homeschool families receive $2,000 per child, capped at $4,000. Eligibility is limited to households at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level, a cap set to come off for 2027-28.

The two nominees for governor are not close on this. Republican Tommy Tuberville: “The CHOOSE Act is pretty simple, and I can’t believe anybody would be against it.” Democrat Doug Jones calls it “a private school choice” rather than a parent’s, and wants it phased out gradually.

Lanett City Schools posted the lowest proficiency scores in Alabama on 2026 state testing, in a district where more than seven in ten students live below the poverty line. By its own numbers, the program is mostly reaching students who were never in a district like that one.

Chattahoochee Valley Community College in Phenix City announced $25,000 on Wednesday from Alabama Construction Industry Craft Training to launch an HVAC FastTrack program: an 11-week accelerated course for 10 students covering electrical fundamentals, refrigeration principles, brazing, system diagnostics, preventive maintenance, safety and installation.

It follows a larger one. On September 16, CVCC received $612,455 from the Alabama Community College System Board of Trustees, split across five line items: more than $200,000 for the practical nursing program, including a virtual reality clinical simulator; $180,000 for supply chain, logistics and transportation workforce education; more than $48,000 for medical laboratory technology lab equipment; $85,000 for a career coordinator; and $85,000 for a success coach.

Two of the five line items pay for people rather than equipment.

CVCC President Annette Funderburk framed the package around removing barriers to training and responding to employer needs. Practical nursing department chair Dr. Vernissa Sparks said the simulator will let students practice clinical skills in a realistic simulation environment. The money is expected to be available in October.

The Opelika City Council was set to change the company running its employee health clinic. Then it took the item off the agenda.

At a September 15 work session, the council reviewed a proposal to replace Premise Health, the clinic’s operator since January 1, 2023, with Symbol Health. The pitch was savings: between $314,000 and $354,000 a year. The clinic at 105 N. 10th St. serves roughly 540 employees, dependents and retirees out of 893 eligible, providing primary care, preventive services, prescriptions and lab work.

Four council members had questions. Chuck Beams (Ward 4) argued for keeping the services local and suggested the city put the contract out for formal proposals. Leigh Whatley (Ward 3) asked how personnel costs could fall by $270,000 while the same staff stayed in place. Todd Rauch (Ward 5) asked what Auburn’s experience with Symbol had been, and what a future expansion of the clinic would cost.

Janataka Hughley-Holmes (Ward 2) returned repeatedly to whether local providers had been given a real chance to bid. “In the end, this might be the best company to run it,” she said, “but it hasn’t been a fair process.”

The item came off the agenda at the regular meeting. No vote was taken.

Symbol Health Solutions is not new to Opelika. The Opelika Observer reported in April that an item had been placed on the council’s consent agenda to send $750,000 to the Opelika Industrial Development Authority, the city’s half of a matching contribution toward a roughly 4,368-square-foot workforce clinic in the Northeast Industrial Park, with Symbol named as the clinical operator. The paper first reported the appropriation as approved, then corrected that the item was removed from the agenda before the meeting.

The September proposal is the second time Symbol’s name has come before the council this year.