July 22, 2021
Jennifer Haynes
First up to speak with the council was East Alabama’s Regional Planning Commission Officer Jason Hardin. Jeff Formby, Executive Director of Piedmont’s Civic Center, had reached out to Mr. Hardin concerning funding to repair the lights at the Sports Complex. Hardin was able to find a grant that would help the city afford 32 lights to be replaced. The grant is an 80/20 grant meaning the city of Piedmont must pay $8,000 of the grant that covers $40,000. Jason Hardin had already begun the paperwork and needed the permission of the council to submit the request before the midnight deadline. Councilman Pope asked if this would fix the entire problem. Hardin replied this would retrofit 32 lights with new LED energy efficient lights. Mayor Baker asked the council if they were comfortable with this decision to proceed with the grant. Baker asked Hardin if there could possibly be more help down the road. Hardin responded, “This is the most readily available, but we are still looking into other avenues of funding.” The Mayor got the ok from the council to approve Mr. Hardin to sign and send the grant application.
Cherokee/Calhoun County Storm Chaser Tracy Delevie was next to speak with the council. Delevie asked the council for the use of one of the city’s repeaters to get a better signal while tracking and the use of radio channel 158. Chief Ledbetter said the channel is licensed to the fire department and isn’t currently being used, but the department has been looking into future uses. No decision was made on this request.
Chief Ledbetter discussed two new hires for the fire department; Ethan Floyd and Rhett Burdette. Both are still in training and will be done by December. Ledbetter then began to tell the councilmen about his findings in support of upgrading their communication systems and radios. Police Chief Nathan Johnson had recently met with MCA Technology Solutions, 911 Communications, and several other agencies to get a better understanding of what all upgrades the city really needs. The options are to either continue using the current VHF Band or upgrade the system entirely. Option #1 Maintaining VHF band by purchasing a new VHF Avtec console which is a 2 user unit. This would connect to the Spillman programming and software already in place through Calhoun County 911. The connection is free of charge and will continue to use the radios currently being used. The cost is between $140,000 and $150,000 depending on features. Financing is available for four, five, or seven years. No payment for the first year necessary. Although this seems the cheaper option, Ledbetter noted, “We are the only department in Calhoun and Cherokee Counties still using VHF systems and MCA strongly suggests we purchase several 700/800 MHz radios if we don’t go with the 700/800 system to make communications with other agencies possible. Option two is a complete radio system overhaul. This includes purchase of new 700/800 MHz Avtec console which will still connect through Spillman program and software for 911. Same cost as VHF console $140,000 to $150,000. Purchase of 30 new 700/800 hand held radios (model APX4000) for fire department and 20 for the police at cost of $5,234 a piece for a total of $259,000.00 This price is good through the end August. Another nine new mobile radios (model APX 4500) for the fire department and 13 for the police department at a cost of $4,498 a piece, totaling $98,956. Financing is available for four, five, and seven years. In purchasing the new radios, there would be a charge from Motorola of $34.14 per month per radio totaling $29,496.96 a year. This Motorola maintenance fee covers operational maintenance on equipment in the tower, disruptions on the repeater and all software updates. This would mean no more city maintenance of the systems. Motorola would service the issues, climb the towers when something happens to the system. Ledbetter also included in purchasing the new 700/800 system Piedmont would receive: radio coverage by all nine Calhoun/Cherokee tower sights, Access to interoperability and communication with the Calhoun/Cherokee/Etowah counties, Access to 24/7/365 radio talk group recording system, access to GPS upgraded features, and 911 support staff technical support services. Mayor Baker asked if we bought the VHF Console would everything work. Ledbetter said yes, but personally I’d like us to purchase the 700/800 MHz system now. If this option isn’t available this console can be upgraded later with the better radios. Ledbetter said he is looking into grants, but they won’t be available for a year and a half. Baker asked about current console and Ledbetter informed him Motorola said they were outdated. Baker asked again about the grant. Chief Johnson spoke with EMA and said the grant will open in August, but will be months later to end and acceptance isn’t guaranteed. Councilman Pope asked about the benefits of upgrading now vs. VHF console route. Ledbetter said cooperation and response with other counties is critical for them and ourselves. They can hear us on our radios, but we can’t hear them. It’s distracting for them to listen to two radios and can lead to miscommunications critical to keeping everyone safe. Our guys need radios. Purchasing one or two radios would be beneficial, but isn’t enough. They may look into selling the current radios to offset costs.
Work session ends, council meeting begins.
Call to order, invocation, pledge, previous minutes accepted. Bills in the amount of $437,294.48 and city payroll in the amount of $140,884.26 totaling $578,178.74 were approved for payment. Resolution No. 2021-15 Resolution Authorizing the use excess levelization rider funds retained by the Alabama Municipal Electric Authority to support the installation of an advanced utility metering infrastructure system. Councilman Kiser asked what this entailed for the citizens of Piedmont. Councilman South said each customer would get a new box and be able to look at their usage electronically throughout the month. More data can be accessed by the citizens and the meters could be read electronically instead of sending someone to read each one. Councilman Ivey said the money was already there for this upgrade. This resolution was approved by the council.
East Alabama Regional planning and Development Commissions senior planner Rajiv Myana was next to speak on Resolution 2021-16. A resolution by the city to improve the comprehensive plan as an advisory policy document. The council approved the update of this plan. Mr. Myana says the over 80 page plan will be uploaded to Piedmont’s City page. Motion was carried to adopt the plan. Kiser suggested to the council they find a better truck for animal control. The current 2006 truck is having issues. Mayor Baker said he was going Wednesday to look at possible vehicles and equipment for the city and would keep a look out. City Clerk Michelle Franklin proposed the purchase of new dumpsters. A new dumpster costs $45,260. The City has new businesses arriving and no dumpsters to give them. We receive a monthly fee for the dumpsters and they are paid for by the first year. After that it’s profit for the city. This was tabled for the next meeting.
Former Police Chief Freddie Norton addressed the council. Norton had been placed on administrative paid leave pending an investigation by the City of Piedmont regarding six letters sent to the Mayor and council. Norton began, “For the last two weeks, I’ve really thought about what I wanted to say tonight. There’s been a lot on my mind. I decided to retire, it was the right thing to do. It’s been a tough season, and I am on my own and have appreciated everyone’s input.”
The following are several points he wished to address on the letters used in the investigation.
Norton: “I was accused of being at the station when I shouldn’t be. I was accused of doing illegal things and being unethical. I didn’t do anything wrong and do not appreciate the accusations. I yell and I cuss, it happens. We all do, it’s a police department. I don’t appreciate the hypocriticalness of these people. Perception is a tricky thing. I’m not going to pinpoint these actions or call people out. They worked hard for me”.
Officer’s wanting to leave police department.
“I knew two of those officers were looking to leave. They came to me. I knew they were looking to leave. They come talked to me about it. They weren’t looking to leave because of me. They were looking to leave because one wanted out and wanted betterment. It’s in the investigation.”
Poor job recruiting.
“If I’m doing a poor job of recruiting officers, then so is everybody else in the area. There are departments paying $50,000 a year to start that are needing police officers. It’s quality, not quantity ya’ll. Quality. Thirteen applications, six passed a basic background check. Zero showed up for physical fitness testing. I don’t know what else to do.”
Taking credit for solved crimes.
“That one puzzles me. I’ve stood before ya’ll and never one time have I taken sole credit. I’ve always said those men and women did that. We guided them in the way we wanted it done. They did it. They did that. They worked hard. They did that.”
The police department building being in bad shape.
“That building was built in 1935 or 1936, somewhere in there. It burned in the 70s. The upstairs just burned. It leaks. It pours water. That building is not on me. That building is on the city. That’s the only way to correct that. I’ll give it to one of the councilmen. He did reach out to me about some things on that. I appreciate that. It’s still expensive. It’s going to be expensive.”
The K-9 issues.
Someone reached out to me, but it’s expensive. “I’m not sure what you know about the cost of a K-9. It’s extremely expensive. When I took over as police chief, we had a K-9. We had two K-9s. Mine retired with me. Mine retired when I took over. There’s $150.00 in the K-9 budget. A man was paying out of his pocket for dog food, medical bills, paying out of his pocket. There’s $150.00 in the budget. A good K-9 is $20,000. My first K-9 was $25,000, not counting me going and living in South Carolina for three weeks. That was in 2006. You don’t just go out and grab a K-9. Nowhere does it say you have to have a K-9 in your police department, but we had worked something out. We’ve been working on something for several months.”
Complaints about the budget.
“Not one time have I said anybody on this council wasn’t willing to help, on this group right here. After that morning, I told people, ‘We’ve got a pretty good group of councilmen. I’ve talked to some of them. They’re willing to spend some money. This is going to be a first for us.’ Leading up to that, bare bones budgets, stop spending money after August. I could go on and on. It wasn’t just the police department. That’s every department in the City of Piedmont. That’s the way we had to operate. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t easy. You can go back and look at my budgets. I never busted my budgets. My budgets always stayed in control. I never went over. I watched them. Did I talk to some of these folks about we’ve got to be careful right here? Yeah, I did. But I wanted to stay below that budget because that was what we were supposed to do as department heads in the City of Piedmont. We did that. It wasn’t me. We did that. The officers did that. I had a lot of them who were mindful of what was going on and they did that.”
Informants and search warrants.
“Every officer that came to me and gave me a name, I turned around and carried it to the investigations office. The investigations office turned around and made a phone call. I can’t tell you the number of times those guys were working with major crimes unit. They worked with them. Just because everybody in the building didn’t know what those guys were doing doesn’t mean things were going on. I can’t talk much about that because I don’t know where some of the cases still are. There are cases out there. The problem is major crimes are short-handed. Every department is short-handed. It’s tough. Television has ruined law enforcement when it comes to things like that. It’s ruined it. It’s absolutely ruined it. You can’t walk up and kick a door in. I worked a drug operation with Nathan Johnson back in 2011. Me and Nathan worked a lot when we weren’t on shift. We come in and worked. It took us a year to get 13 warrants, enough evidence to get 13 warrants. One whole year. Television has ruined that aspect. Those guys have done search warrants for the major crimes unit. I don’t know how many they did. I know they were about to do one one day and the guy moved at midnight. The search warrant is no longer any good. He moved at midnight. You can’t search where he moved to. You can only search where he sold the dope out of.”
Police tenure goal.
“This one puzzled me when I was reading it. I had someone take a goal of mine and made it bad. I’ve said more than one time I wanted to be the longest-tenured police chief in the City of Piedmont. That was a goal of mine, yet it’s bad? It’s in these letters and it’s bad because I want to be the longest-tenured police chief in the City of Piedmont? How is that bad? I don’t know.”
Pitting employees against one another.
“I’ve got to be real careful on this one too. Employee A comes to me and says Employee B is fixing to beat up Employee C. It’s going to happen. It’s getting bad. So then I go to Employee five, six, and seven, and I bring them in and say ‘Hey, what’s going on? What is happening? What is causing these things?’ I get information. What happens when they walk out of there and start talking amongst themselves? I was trying to figure out what was going on in some situations. There’s more than that. I’m not going to pinpoint any of these folks. They worked hard.”
Unfair training.
“I just learned what this was about two or three days ago. We had an officer who text me periodically and said ‘Hey, I’m off this day. Can I go to this training?’ Sure, It’s free, go. They text me ‘Hey, can I go to this two-day training? I’m off both of those days.’ I don’t care. Go. One officer was coming to me asking me all these questions. I sent that officer to a training. I did. I was fixing to send that officer to another training, but then I learned there’s a list of all these trainings this officer was wanting to go to that supposedly was left laying around. I didn’t know about these trainings that we were wanting to go to, but apparently the decision was made that I had approved all those trainings. I hadn’t. I hadn’t approved all those trainings. There’s a lot of great free training out there. I post training on the board, nobody goes. It’s there. It’s posted. We try to keep it up there where they can see it. When I get it, I try to put it up there. This particular officer was paying attention, going through everything they were supposed to be going through, watching it, looking at it, ‘Hey can I go to this?’ Yeah, you can go.”
Piedmont Police Department Rules and Regulations.
“In our field training, when they are hired with us, one of the things they must do that is signed off by the training officer, is read the rules and regulations. I encourage all of you to read the rules and regulations, I really do. I encourage you to read it. There are several in this department that can tell you right now they didn’t realize it until some of this stuff come up that they started looking through the rules and regulations, and every month in our department meeting, I was picking out a section in rules and regulations. Guess what we were doing? We were going over it. They didn’t know what I was doing because they probably weren’t paying attention to some of it. They had forgotten it, but I was going over it, making sure we knew what we were supposed to be doing at times. Maybe some of these things I should have done a better job at, making sure they knew some of these other things.”
Unfair treatment of tardiness for officers.
“There’s 20-something employees in the police department when we’re full-staffed. They clock in. There’s ten clock-ins and clock-outs on every time card. I don’t go through every time card and look at that. Usually when I knew when somebody was being tardy it’s because the supervisor or the OIC (officer in charge) on the shift came to me and said ‘Hey, Employee A is late.’ Like I said, I don’t look through those. It wasn’t unfair. Supposedly some people were being late and I wasn’t being told about it. Again, I guess I can take the blame. I should have been looking at the time cards better. That also goes back to supervision too.”
Police Officers Lying.
“Here’s another one I’ve got to be careful with. We’re not going to lie. I would hope that the city council and the mayor would understand that if somebody is caught lying, there’s no way they can lie out of it, they continue to tell a lie, and they continue to tell a lie to fix the first lie. There needs to be discipline. There needs to be discipline for that. I hope that we can agree upon that. That’s what one of those things in the investigation – not in the letters, but that’s what one of those things in that investigation is dead wrong about – is we lied. We continued to lie, continued to lie to me and another officer and a supervisor.”
Standard operating procedures and mistreatment of a subordinate.
“The subordinate was written up. The supervisor was told the subordinate was written up. They were told that. It was a bad deal. I watched the body cam footage. It was bad. It was as bad on one as it was the other. It was bad. Extremely disappointing. I didn’t make the decision on my own. I had others sit down with me and watch it. We come to the same agreement. It was bad. The SOP is what it is. That’s our standard operating procedure. That’s what we do. If you tell me somebody else does it a different way, then probably you need to go to that department. That’s in that investigation. Ya’ll can look through it and see it. It’s in there.”
Tipping off drug dealers.
“That one cut me deep, I’m going to tell you. I don’t know what ya’ll know. I’m going to put myself out here. I’m going to put my family out here, I’ve arrested my own flesh and blood. I’m not about this game. I’m not into this. Just because Jimmy Lou, the local dope dealer, when you arrested them tells you that the chief is involved in the pill game, it doesn’t mean that it’s true. I’ve been told just about every officer in the department is involved in the pill game. I don’t believe that. I never have. I’ve been told that my entire career. Any police officer that’s not been told that another officer is involved in the drug game is lying to you when they tell you they’ve not been told that. This one was just a dig. That’s all this one was, a dig.”
Telling Officers they would fired.
“Yes I did. I did. I had several officers come to me. They said ‘Hey, you need to check so-and-so. I’m not real sure about some stuff they’re doing.’ I watched body cam footage. Body cam footage is great, It’s a great tool. I know Captain Johnson has already used body cam footage several times already himself. It’s a great tool. That body cam footage concerned me what those officers had told me. Our Fourth Amendment is what our Fourth Amendment is. You’re not going to work for me and violate that Fourth Amendment and violate it continuously, or come close to it. You’re not going to work for me. I’m friends with just about every chief in this area. They’re not going to let you work for them either. I said what I said. I can’t change that. I said that. I meant that. We can’t be out here violating people’s rights. It just can’t happen. Luckily, we fixed it in the middle of it on the two or three I watched. We fixed it before we got ourselves too deep. We didn’t do anything wrong. We fixed it. And I applaud those officers. They caught it. They fixed it.”
Discussion on a jail fight.
“I’m just going to read you something on that. Both jaws x-rayed. Sent to oral surgeon because excessive swelling was concerning to the dentist. Couldn’t put teeth together for over a week. Headache for five days. Four stitches. Received a shot of Toradol on the fourth day because of neck and shoulder pain and stiffness. Tooth removed. The root was broke down in the jaw that caused infection. Recently had a knot removed from elbow, three years later. Black eye. That first part was me. That last part was the guy I was fighting.”
Officers and employees being contacted by the mayor.
‘Direct messages, cell phones pics are the devil. I have interesting things here (shakes cell phone), screenshots. “He must go now!” Some of this before you were sworn in. This phone contains very interesting information indeed. Funny how those six letters turned to four real quick. I hope you’ve read the final question and some of the answers on the final question. That’s all I’m going to say about that. I hope you’ve read it. That’s all I have to say about the final question. Read the final question. Look at some of the answers on that final question of your investigation.”
This was not easy for me. I came here not expecting to stay this long. Piedmont grows on you. I’ve had a great career, worked hard, and did my very best. May 2nd 1995 I became a cop, and my end goal was to retire after 30 years. I’ll be the 5th to have retired from this department. I have been supported my my wonderful family. My parents, wife, children, and friends. I am blessed that I can still continues to work in this profession. I picked friends not involved in law enforcement for outside the job support. City Clerk Michelle Franklin has been wonderful and helped tremendously throughout my career. The media has treated me great with kindness and I’ve been blessed by their coverage. I hope I did my job to the satisfaction of my town. I know you can’t please everyone, but I feel the majority were satisfied. I’d like to thank all the officers I’ve worked with ’til now. I know it hasn’t been easy, but you worked hard and gave me your best. I hope they know I truly appreciated them. Thank you again to my wonderful wife, truly a blessing.
Police Chief Nathan Johnson then gave his monthly activity report, and animal control report.
9 felony arrests, 18 misdemeanor arrests, and one DUI arrest. Out of all those arrests, 21 were drug related. There were three crimes against persons, zero theft arrests, 15 court warrant arrests and 12 arrests for other agencies. 38 traffic citations. One violent crime, two burglaries, two thefts, and a total of 15 cases investigated. Out of those cases, there were nine incident reports taken. 291 calls for service and 768 officer initiated. There were 1,083 total contacts with the public, which includes motorist assists. The amount of miles patrolled during the month was 8,778 miles. 568 rescue calls dispatched, including 36 fire department calls. The total number of calls to the communications center was 2,157. Animal Control there were seven calls for service. Nineteen animals were picked up, with five taken to the shelter and 14 reclaimed by the owner.
Misty Shell approached the council about an elusive dog that killed her dog. She stated the dog in question has been on the loose since November of last year, had killed several cats ands dogs, now hers. Officers have been working with a local vet on the matter and will be purchasing a tranquilizer gun to aid in capturing the allusive dog, and to help with future cases. Shell stated it took four calls to make one report. She feels this dog could bite anyone, including small children in the area. The previous owner was said to have moved and abandoned the dog. Shell feels the owner should be held responsible for the dog. Mrs. Shell said, “The problem I’ve got is this dog has been loose since November,” Shell began. “The animal control officer was contacted on Nov. 18 that this dog had attacked a cat. He tried to help the owner of the dog and catch him when she moved. When he was contacted in November, this shouldn’t have stopped just because he couldn’t catch it. We’re at the end of July now, the first of August, and this dog is still running loose. You see what he did to my dog. That’s not OK. My thing is what if this would have been my grandbaby. Somebody needs to be held responsible bottom line.” Chief Johnson replied, “This dog is so elusive. You’re not going to be able to catch it. I’ve had officers riding on patrol with catch poles in their cars, just trying to get this dog. We’ve exhausted some resources in trying to get it. Right now I’m working with one of the local vets in the area to try to do something else to try and get this dog caught so the issues will get resolved.” Mayor Baker replied, “We’re going to get this dog. We’re going to get the equipment we need to tranquilize this dog, whatever it takes. We can’t have this.” Baker asked Chief Johnson about protocols in a case like this. Johnson said the dog must be deemed aggressive. Councilman Pope asked who determines whether the dog is euthanized. Johnson stated the animal is caught and taken to Calhoun County Animal Shelter were the veterinarian makes the decision.
Chief Johnson then asked the council for seven vests for the police department. His supplier has them for $1,701 a piece. PT Armor has them with carrier cases, custom fit, and they come with warranties totaling $5,675.64. The mayor agreed they needed them. Kiser and pope set the motion for purchase. There was also talk of a training session for law enforcement officers. The council was asked to participate on August 3rd. The training is tailored for Piedmont. The council agreed to participate and rescheduled next months meetings for August 17th and 31st.
Comments.
District 4 offered advice about the new virus. Discipline, good hygiene, and social distancing will help reduce new variant contamination. Mayor Baker agreed and recommended Piedmont residents social distance. District 7 Kiser added he would like to give the fire department night shift a dollar raise just like the police department. Also, there are some issues at the park with tree limbs and roots making it hard to walk through certain areas. He would like the tree removed and the ground flattened back out.
City Clerk Michelle Franklin announced at the end of the meeting, after much deliberation, she has decided to retire effective October 1st, 2021. “This is tough decision for me and an emotional decision, but after much deliberation and input from my family, I have made the decision to retire as city clerk/treasurer/personnel director for the City of Piedmont,” Franklin said. “I’ve enjoyed my 30 years of service with the city and wish all the best for a great city in the future. I leave this position knowing it has been a privilege to serve the citizens of Piedmont and all its employees, but the time has come to move on to the next chapter in my life as I become more involved with my family business. There are ups and downs in every job, but I’ve made a lot of good friends, some like family. I’ll never forget all the memories I’ve had here, good and bad, but I believe it’s time to move on. I thank you all.” Mayor Baker Thanked her for her service and said, “I’ve worked with Michelle in that office on a daily basis for a lot of years as mayor, and I appreciate what she’s done. Michelle, we’re going to miss you.”
