New Judges/WLAY Gone for Good?

You’re in need of surgery; which physician would you choose: Doc A who has five or less years experience; Doc B who has 15 years experience; or Doc C who has been practicing for 25 years?

Certainly there are more variables in any employment equation than just years of experience, but years on any job count for much. What about judges? What should you consider when you elect a new circuit court judge?

Lauderdale County is facing elections in two of its three circuit court judgeships, and the primary is now less than three months away. Do your homework.

We’ll be making endorsements in January or February, but as always we happily publish comments/blogs in favor of candidates we don’t support. Let us know what you think!

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Is Muscle Shoals radio station WLAY now gone for good? The old sign of which most of us have fond memories, is...well, we hear it's somewhere rusting away. Could it have been saved? We have no idea. The interesting thing is that we have received no mail asking about saving WVNA--its sign still rusting away on Mitchell Boulevard.

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Shoalanda

Signs of the Time? Don't Blame URBan Broadcasting

001 Mitchell Boulevard

Pictured is the rusting WVNA sign located adjacent to the northern entrance to O'Neal Bridge. The exact address is 001 Mitchell Boulevard. The property on which the sign sits is currently for sale by Weichert Realty for an unknown (at least to us) sum. The appraised value listed by Delta Systems is $5,300.00 for the relatively small triangle of land.

However, URBan Broadcasting doesn't own the property which at one time touted the time and temp along with a revolving blurb for WVNA FM/AM radio stations. It seems the property and sign's official owner is Mary Jane Darby, the widow of Elton H. Darby who at one time owned WVNA. The Darby family/estate is notorious for its tangles with Sheffield and other public entities over what amounts to little more than abandoned property.

Shall we assume this sign will be refurbished or torn down anytime soon? Not unless the property is sold. The sign is in Dick Jordan's district, as is the Knight-Humphries Donut. The location is described by realtors as great, but it's actually small and hard to access. It does offer a great location for signage. Let's hope a new owner is soon found.

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Sheffield five years ago. It's moving forward, at least parts of it:





Shoalanda

Shoals Radio Daze?

A guest commentary that asks some surprising questions:

Shoals residents should be questioning this situation. Have you tried to listen to WLAY or WVNA in the last few years? They have both been getting Special Temporary Authorities (STA) from the FCC to operate on "temporary" antennas at low power (after both were off the air for a protracted period). 

I question the use of the word temporary since this has been going on for years now. I think in the case of one of the stations they were renting property for the antenna and the landlord raised the rent. I'm not sure if that happened with the other, or if they just decided to sell the property to make a quick buck. 

It's possible that they are working on getting facilities to broadcast as licensed, but my suspicion is that they're just keeping something on the air so they don't have to turn in the licenses, either in hope of selling the license to someone who will really use it or (my real suspicion) they don't want to turn in the license because someone else might get it and bring some competition to the market. 

Stations are supposed to meet the conditions of their license. An STA is for a temporary emergency, such as a tower collapse or station fire. WYLE-TV had its license revoked by the FCC because they were not operating as licensed.

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Anyone have any ideas on the current situation with these two stations? Comments welcome.



Shoalanda

US Marshals in Cherokee?/Pocket Park

A very reliable source has informed us that US Marshals may be headed to Cherokee. Since the details have not been confirmed, we won't publish any other info on this, but look for a story tomorrow.

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Pocket Park? How Empty! Most of us remember the mantra "Point Park? How Pointless!" from the campaign to rename the riverside facility to honor veterans. May we suggest a similar new name is in order for Pocket Park, the small park just south of Seven Points on Wood Avenue. This location was home to the Norwood Theatre until it burned in 1968.

For many years the lot sat vacant until the City of Florence constructed the current amphitheatre. The location is now used for festival events and impromptu lunches for those who work nearby.

If you have a suggestion for a fitting name, please e-mail us. Florence Councilman Dick Jordan is an avid local historian and would be a good person to head this campaign. We've very good at volunteering others...

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We recently mentioned the WVNA sign on the Florence side of O'Neal Bridge. One may see from the photograph that the sign has experienced no recent upkeep. The tower is rusty, and the time/date mechanism hasn't worked in years.

If the station's owners won't properly maintain the sign, the City of Florence should begin condemnation proceedings. The new owners of the station have experienced financial troubles since purchasing the business from the Darby family, but bad advertising is worse than no advertising at all.



Shoalanda

What Others Are Saying about the Shoals

Yesterday marked the silver anniversary of the NCAA Division II championship held in Florence. Comments published in the TimesDaily concerning visitor reaction to our area have been universally favorable. We've previously published some negative comments concerning the game's venue, Braly Stadium. Now, here are a few comments from fans and visitors that might not make it to our daily rag:

Pretty low showing. 2nd lowest in 20 years. - Concerning attendance of only 4,027

I don't care what people say, the Shoals is not a hot bed of tourist activity this time of year unless you want to hunt or fish. If the NCAA wants a packed house, then move it to an area that loves football, easily accessible via air travel, has hotels with more than a 2 star rating and a stadium located in an area that is aesthetically pleasing. Braly looks like the neighborhood...ready for the dumpster. If not for the NC game, I would never travel to the Shoals area. The new turf did nothing to make this game look better on TV.

I'm not blaming any organizations, but until someone puts a bunch of promotion to D2 Football and it's championship, I'd expect 4-6k at the game.

Shoals is a pain to get to

The annual let's move the national championship game somewhere else has begun.

field looks nice

sitting alone in a dive of a motel for one more night, I am trying to kill the time. Not much else going on in Florence.

Note: Positive comments are in green; negative in red.

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Obviously those of us who live in the Shoals area look at it with love and also with eyes that may not see its shortcomings due to constant exposure. Keeping that in mind, have any of our readers recently looked at the WVNA sign adjacent to the southbound lanes of O'Neal Bridge? This is truly an eyesore and should be either taken down or refurbished.



Shoalanda