Village Living Volume 5 | Issue 12 | March 2015
Community awards
C OMMUNITY
M EMBER OF THE YEAR
Every community has people and causes that make a difference. This issue includes a ballot for our cause and community member of the year. Cast your vote by March 8.
See page A14
Summer fun
Inside, find our guide to the best summer camps for kids. From sports to outdoor adventures, we break down the basics of area programs.
See page B2
INSIDE Sponsors ..........A6 City .....................A7 Business ...........A9 Community .......B7
neighborly news & entertainment for Mountain Brook
Mountain Brook’s ambassador
C OMMUNITY
Cabaniss’ CBillAUSE diplomacy OF THE YEAR
journey documented in new book
By MADOLINE MARKHAM A large painting canvasses the left wall of the entry to the Cabaniss home off Old Leeds Road. On it, faces of elderly women sitting and talking show their resilience from surviving 40 years of Communist control. Catherine Cabaniss had invited this group over once a month to have tea in their residence while her husband, Bill, was serving as ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2004-2006. One day, instead of conversing with her in broken English and broken Czech, they asked Catherine to paint them. Works of various Czech artists the Cabanisses befriended during those years now accentuate their home, but most of Bill’s memorabilia lives in his Office Park office. As ambassador, his focus had been on the political and business community — a realm in which he had spent most of his career, only most of it had been in a very different climate back in Alabama.
See CABANISS | page A22
Catherine and Bill Cabaniss walk in front of their Mountain Brook home. The couple lived in Prague from 2004-06 while Bill served as ambassador to the Czech Republic. Photo by Karim Shamsi-Basha.
Intersection traffic solutions examined By MADOLINE MARKHAM
School House...B10 Sports ...............B13 Faith ..................B17 Calendar ..........B18
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Jennifer Holmes of Skipper Consulting discusses intersections under consideration for study with City Council Member Lloyd Shelton at a Feb. 10 meeting. Photo by Madoline Markham.
YOU’RE THINKING SPRING CLEAN.
Mike Kaczorowski slowed his car into a stopped queue on Montevallo Road at 5:52 p.m. on a Tuesday evening. He thought that allowed him plenty of time to turn onto Church Street and make it to City Hall for a 6 p.m. meeting, but he was wrong. He arrived at 6:05 p.m. A few minutes late, Kaczorowski, a planner with the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham (RPCGB), raised his hand to share his experience sitting on Montevallo Road. After all, the purpose of the Feb. 10 meeting was to get public input on which Mountain Brook intersections most needed improvement Using this public input, the city and Skipper Consulting have been working to select approximately eight intersections for a detailed traffic analysis and development of recommendations for improvements. At the top of the list so far is the Church Street-Montevallo Road intersection. About half of the comments from residents were about this intersection and the inability to turn left from Montevallo onto Montrose. “It’s not intuitive, particularly for people who don’t travel it often,” said resident Katie Grayson, whose
See TRAFFIC | page A21 Proudly keeping homes cleaner and healthier since 1987
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