Newly released emails shed light on Trussville city council conflict
According to emails exclusively obtained by Alabama Today, current Trussville Mayor Gene Melton and mayoral candidate and City Councilman Buddy Choat wished to delay going into an Executive Session to vote on whether or not to place on administrative leave Trussville Fire Chief Russell Ledbetter and Fire Marshal Steve Reasonover pending an internal investigation as late as Monday afternoon. “Anthony I received a part of the information requested this morning but need additional time to compile the rest of the data,” Melton wrote in response to City Council President and mayoral candidate Anthony Montalto‘s request that the Council convene an Executive Session to make the decision behind closed doors. “I hope to be able to report back in the next couple of days with a plan and a possible solution to bring this issue to a close quickly. I respectfully ask that you not go into executive session during tomorrow night’s meeting.” “Mayor,” Montalto replied, “I feel we need to go ahead with our decision to go into Executive Session again tomorrow night. With the information that was shared with us last Thursday, I feel the sooner we make a decision about our role, the better.” A few minutes later Choat agreed with Mayor Melton writing, “I disagree. We need ALL of the facts and information to make any decision this important.” When Alabama Today reached out to Councilman Choat regarding the email, he explained that he didn’t want to make the vote on whether or not to place the two city employees on administrative leave until they had enough information to make him feel comfortable taking such drastic measures. “My opinion was, if we’re going to take action, let’s get all the information we can,” explained Choat. “I thought that in case some of that information may have disputed what we had already seen or heard, but obviously it did not. We didn’t get anything to change our minds, so it was unanimous among us to go ahead and do what we had to do.” Choat and Montalto will face off Tuesday, Oct. 4 in a runoff bid to replace Melton as mayor of Trussville. Alabama Today has covered this story since the Executive Session on Tuesday, Sept. 27. Follow us for more details as they break. For the original email chain, click here: choat-email
Trussville Fire Chief and Marshal placed on administrative leave pending investigation
Trussville Fire Chief Russell Ledbetter and Fire Marshal Steve Reasonover were officially placed on paid administrative leave Tuesday night following a lengthy closed-door executive session of the City Council. Following the announcement made by Council President Anthony Montalto, Councilman Alan Taylor moved to hire a private law firm to conduct the investigation. “Information has come to our attention and it has become necessary for us to look further in to this,” Montalto said. “For the record, no one has been found guilty of anything, this is just an investigation,” he added. “We want to make this clear and hopefully we’ll get good results.” City officials are refusing to make any further comment while the investigation is ongoing. The executive session was listed on the council’s agenda simply as the vague “Vote to go into Executive Session to discuss good name and character,” leaving the approximately 30 citizens of Trussville in attendance guessing how long the closed-door session would last. While two city councilmen-elect were invited back among the sitting members for the meeting, current Trussville Mayor Gene Melton, who lost his seat in August, remained in the main council chamber. The Trussville Fire Department operates under an unusual arrangement where part of the department is paid and part is volunteer. Both Reasonover and Ledbetter work for the paid department. Tuesday’s announcement is the latest in a string of recent investigations and arrests of fire officials from municipalities and counties with volunteer fire departments across the state. In March, Blount County Fire Chief Paula Robertson was arrested on felony charges she stole thousands from her department over two years. In Elmore County, Deatsville Assistant Fire Chief Chad Ellis was arrested for arson. And just last month, Chilton County Fire Chief Shawn Carlisle was arrested on charges he stole $20,000 from his volunteer fire department. Trussville Assistant Fire Chief Tim Shotts was named acting chief while the investigation is ongoing.
