John Katopodis
Gregory John Katopodis (born 1947) is a businessman and former member and president of the Birmingham City Council, a former member of the Jefferson County Commission, and Birmingham mayoral candidate in 1979 and 1983. He also served as assistant superintendent of the Birmingham Public Schools in the early seventies.
Katopodis is a 1973 graduate of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and also holds a Phd from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Sweden and also is a recipient of Harvard's Sheldon Prize and several other academic awards. Prior to his entrance to Harvard, he served as director of federal programs in Sumter County, Georgia where he implemented the school desegregation order and made national news stories with his efforts to peacefully desegregate the school system where former president Jimmy Carter served as chairman of the school board.
Katopodis also served as chairman of the Birmingham Regional Planning Commission and as secretary of the Alabama Republican party. His tenure as the first Republican elected to the Jefferson County Commission ended when Gary White defeated him in 1990 in the Republican primary. White later pursued a redistricting plan that included redrawing the line so that Katopodis' residence would fall in Chris McNair's district. Recently, both McNair and White have been tried and convicted of felonies in the County's sewer bribery scandal.
In 1979 Katopodis ran along with a large group of challengers (which included now Mayor Larry Langford)for Mayor of Birmingham against incumbent David Vann. Richard Arrington won the runoff against Frank Parsons and became the city's first African-American mayor. Katopodis ran again in 1983, challenging Arrington's incumbency, but was soundly defeated.
In the 1990s Katopodis tried to spur closer ties between area governments forming the Council of Cooperating Governments]]. The organization's primary project was a campaign to establish a new regional airport in Alabama to serve Atlanta and Birmingham. In 2001 the FBI interviewed Katopodis about an alleged "shakedown" in which Roger Clinton would get a lucrative consulting job from the Council in exchange for participation from the Secretary of Transportation in their efforts.
Katopodis helped create the charity program Computer Help for Kids along with Larry Langford and Richard Scrushy which has distributed over 6000 refurbished computers to disadvantaged children and is still operational. More recently, he worked with Mayor Larry Langford to negotiate the purchase of 15,000 XO laptops from the One Laptop Per Child foundation. His involvement in the program troubled Councilor Valerie Abbott, who dissented from her colleagues by voting against the laptop purchase.
Katopodis also made news in 2006, when he proposed renaming Caldwell Park in honor of fellow councilor Nina Miglionico and abandoning the name of the former slave owner after whom the park was named. He again made news when Healthsouth revealed he had used monies provided by them to hire many "unemployable" people including Ryan Idol a former adult entertainer to repair and distribute used computers. Katopodis has denied any wrongdoing in this regard, but disassociated himself with the charity.