[5], Woodfin unsuccessfully ran for the Birmingham Board of Education's District 3 seat in 2009, placing third in a four-person race. [16], Woodfin received support from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who recorded a robo-call telling voters that Woodfin would fight for Medicare for All. The office of mayor was established with the incorporation of Birmingham in 1871. [29] Woodfin has maintained that total violent crime has dropped in the city during his tenure, and points to the police department's removal of thousands of guns from the streets. Find your polling location at AlabamaVotes.gov. His dedication to his hometown and to others developed when he was a 15-year-old working as a bagger at a Birmingham supermarket. Those efforts include a focus on transforming the city into a hub for women- and minority-owned businesses. [6], In 2009, Woodfin became an assistant city attorney for the City of Birmingham, a position he held until being elected mayor in 2017. [24], Birmingham's high violent crime rate was a central plank of Woodfin's campaign platform; his nephew, Ralph Woodfin III, was shot and killed in August 2017, just weeks before the general election. The Alabama Attorney General has filed suit against the city of Birmingham for violating the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act. [19], In March 2018, Woodfin's transition committee announced it had discovered that the city's pension fund had been consistently underfunded for more than 15 years, endangering the city's credit rating and retirement benefits for thousands of city employees. Look at the Books: A Q&A With Birmingham's Next Mayor", "A Work in Progress: Woodfin Assesses His First 100 Days", "A Hole in the Balance Sheet: Birmingham's Impending Pension Crisis", "Woodfin Highlights "Moral Obligations" of Proposed 2020 Budget", "Whitmire: What's Randall Woodfin hiding? [36][37], Woodfin was selected as one of seventeen speakers to jointly deliver the keynote address at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Until 1910, the Mayor presided over an ever-expanding Board of Aldermen who generally campaigned on the same ticket. Woodfin's nephew Ralph Woodfin III was killed in August 2017. "[39], Woodfin has politically been compared to Jackson, Mississippi Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, another Our Revolution-backed candidate elected in 2017. “Putting People First” is a strategy representing Mayor Woodfin’s mission to build the best version of Birmingham it can be. This is a list of mayors, or persons holding the equivalent office, of Birmingham, Alabama. Joseph Chamberlain 's great social improvements as mayor led to Birmingham being … [28], The city's homicide rate has stayed approximately the same since Woodfin took office; the city logged 117 homicides in 2017, 110 in 2018, and 112 in 2019. [13], During the campaign, Woodfin criticized Bell's failure to improve Birmingham residents' quality of life[14] and promised to focus his administration on revitalization of the city's 99 neighborhoods. ", "With First Demolition, Woodfin Promises "Aggressive" Approach to Blight", "Teen killed in Tarrant shooting was Birmingham mayoral candidate's nephew", "Police Chief A.C. Roper Retires as Mayor Woodfin Looks to Make Personnel Changes at City Hall", "Birmingham Hires LA Commander to be New Police Chief", "Mayor Woodfin unveils PEACE Campaign to counteract violent crime", "Birmingham homicides by year - Bhamwiki", "Birmingham Mayor Woodfin gives State of the City address", "Mayor Woodfin's $15 million COVID-19 Response Plan Approved by the Birmingham City Council", "Birmingham Residents Ordered to Shelter in Place, Leave Home for Only the Most Essential Activities", "Alabama attorney general sues Birmingham for removing Confederate monument", "Woodfin makes endorsement in 2020 Democratic presidential race", "Exclusive: Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin Endorses Joe Biden for President", "Democrats Unveil A New Kind of Convention Keynote", "Populists Are on the March in the South: Bernie-Backed Insurgent Randall Woodfin Defeats Birmingham's Incumbent Mayor", "Mayors Lumumba of Jackson, Woodfin of Birmingham dish on poverty solutions", cities with populations exceeding 100,000, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Randall_Woodfin&oldid=975354441, African-American people in Alabama politics, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 28 August 2020, at 01:47.