The Frequency

Local nonprofit UNITE has received a $1.4 million federal TRIO grant to open an educational opportunity center in Chambers County. The center offers free academic counseling, admissions guidance and financial aid help to qualified adults 18 and older who want to enter or continue college.

Services also include career counseling, tutoring, financial literacy, AI literacy and help finding apprenticeships. UNITE says it hopes to use the Alabama Workforce Pell Grant for the adults it serves.

The center began serving Lanett and LaFayette earlier this month. UNITE is still working out how it will operate, and executive director Dr. Travis Smith says workshops and services will be held in the community. Smith describes the work as more than degrees: choosing a career field, then finding the credentials, apprenticeships and internships to get there. UNITE already does similar work with high school students.

State Superintendent Eric Mackey gave the State Board of Education preliminary enrollment figures at a work session on Oct. 8. WTVM reports that enrollment is now above 700,000, nearly 20,000 below two years ago.

State teaching units follow enrollment. WBMA reports the loss could cost roughly 800 of them next year. That does not necessarily mean 800 teachers lose their jobs, since districts may absorb losses through vacancies or other funding.

Mackey pointed to falling birth rates, which WTVM ties to about 2,500 fewer kindergartners. The station also reports that roughly half or more of Alabama’s counties are losing enrollment as their populations shrink, with rural schools hit hardest, and it counts about 3,000 of the lost students as CHOOSE Act students, the private-education scholarship program. Mackey said the available figures do not appear large enough to explain the full decline. The department’s main concern is that some children may not be enrolled in any school.

The figures are preliminary while the state corrects student records. District-by-district numbers are expected in the coming weeks, and that data will cover Chambers County Schools and Lanett City Schools.

The state is still counting.

The Alabama Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on SB 1, the 2024 law that restricts who can handle absentee ballot applications. It bars returning another person’s application, and it makes paying someone to hand out or collect applications a felony.

The justices are answering questions sent by the federal 11th Circuit in December. The court must decide whether a provision guaranteeing voters help from a person of their choice creates an exception to those rules, and which kinds of help count as prohibited. A federal judge blocked enforcement of parts of the law against blind, disabled and illiterate voters in 2024, and the state appealed.

The plaintiffs include the Alabama NAACP, the League of Women Voters of Alabama and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program. They argue the law’s wording is unclear and could expose voters and their helpers to prosecution. Valencia Richardson of the Campaign Legal Center said the goal is for citizens with disabilities to receive the assistance of their choice.

The attorney general’s office says the law “protects vulnerable voters from paid ballot harvesters and other political operatives” and gives full effect to Section 208 of the federal Voting Rights Act. Justices asked how the law would be enforced and whom it protects. No ruling has been announced.

The law applies in every county, Chambers included.

The LaFayette City Council approved an emergency replacement of a collapsing manhole cover on Alabama Avenue East, near LaFayette High School, at its Monday meeting.

Wastewater Superintendent Allen Garrett told the council the manhole is solid brick, probably from the 1940s or 1950s, and is caving in on itself. He said he had to remove bricks just to get flow moving again, and he closed the road because he does not consider it safe for buses. Buses have been rerouted around the school.

Garrett contacted three contractors, and only Kerr Construction could start on short notice. The replacement costs $22,500. Another $24,000 in repairs remains, and the council agreed to revisit the less critical work after the city decides how to cut costs.

The council also heard that the city has applied for an Appalachian Regional Commission grant for a $1 million downtown water project, meant to update water lines and cut down on “dirty water.” And it adopted a new agreement with the Chambers County Jail for housing city inmates, after Sheriff Jeff Nelson found no current contract had been in place for many years. The terms match those Valley and Lanett already have.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Monet Gaines dismissed the residency lawsuit against John Wahl, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, on Oct. 13. She granted the plaintiffs’ own request, and the dismissal is with prejudice. The order makes no finding on where Wahl lives.

The plaintiffs, Jarrod and Amanda Schulte and Valtoria Jackson, argued that Wahl did not meet the constitutional requirement that a lieutenant governor be an Alabama resident for seven years before the election. Their complaint cited records about a Tennessee driver’s license and voter registration. The Alabama Political Reporter does not say why they asked for dismissal.

Wahl had moved to dismiss on Sept. 21, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction over a challenge to a party’s nominee before the general election and that the complaint did not show he abandoned his Alabama domicile, pointing to an Alabama vehicle registration and an Athens address in its own exhibits. He said he has lived his whole life as an Alabamian and that the challenge rested on the false premise that a second residence means losing Alabama residency. His campaign called the dismissal a significant legal victory.

On Oct. 9, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of a separate residency challenge to Tommy Tuberville, the Republican nominee for governor, ruling the lower court lacked jurisdiction and not deciding whether he meets the requirement.

Tuesday night, Ensler held a town hall at a church in Opelika with Rep. Jeremy Gray, who is unopposed for House District 83. They discussed affordability, workforce and health care. Wahl did not respond to WTVM’s request for comment Tuesday, and the station did not say whether he was invited.

Voter registration closes Monday, Oct. 19, for the Nov. 3 election.

The suit moved on, but the question stayed put.