If every municipality in Alabama had a “Concerned Citizen” such as the one in Columbia, Alabama, Alabama would not be so political corrupt. A concerned citizen is just the first step, where the hell is the Ethics Commission, Attorney General or FBI?
If the allegations did not have supporting documents I can see where the complaint would go no where. But in the case of Columbia documents, witnesses exist and yet the Columbia City Council hides like sheep while the Mayor and Police Chief ignore any and all allegations.
Their defense is to shoot the messenger, the concerned citizen.
Those of you that are followers of the Ripp Report know, first hand, of much more egregious actions by the Fairhope City Council. Everything from bid rigging, inside information, FEMA fraud, fraudulent bids and land fraud is on the present city council’s resume.
The city attorney and municipal judge both have played a dirty part, and supported, the corruption and misuse of their office. Documents, evidence and numerous complaints all fell on deaf ears of the authorities. Some complaints were not even acknowledged by the Alabama Attorney General.
Columbia is much smaller in population and the allegations, felonies, may not appear as serious as those of Fairhope. However to date they have been equally ignored by citizens the press and authorities.
Columbia’s concerned citizen, as well as a CPA, past magistrate and city clerk, all have supported the allegations of the concerned citizen. It is now time for Columbia citizens to do their part and ask the Mayor, in council chambers the following questions:
“If you interview the mayor, she most likely will deny any wrongdoing and state she was just doing her job or did not know she was doing anything wrong. As I have previously pointed out neither of these are a defense. Ignorance of the law is not a defense. The mayor can’t use the “I was just doing my job” defense because she was not authorized by law and was was not acting as a public servant in a reasonable exercise of her official powers, authorized duties or functions.
Ask her if she denies hiring two contractors to perform municipal improvements without council authority. Now ask her for the resolution approved by the council authorizing the work. Now ask for the bids and subsequent contracts as required by law.
Ask her if she denies purchasing flowers, and gift baskets for citizens, employees, friends, herself, as well as employee’s family with town funds. She can’t deny this because there are numerous incriminating invoices from the two florists used and the subsequent public fund checks used to pay these illegal expenditures.
Ask her to furnish you with her authority to make the purchases of the said flowers and gifts. She can’t! There is no authority to do so. It is against the law. Such expenditure by a town using public funds is prohibited under sections 68 & 94 of the Alabama Constitution. This is supported by Alabama Attorney General Opinion 2002-133. A violation of this act is prosecuted as a theft of property under Alabama Criminal Code Title 13A.
Finally ask the mayor if she denies giving town property to an individual. She has no such authority. First, it is against the law to give municipal property to an individual. Second, the mayor does not have control over property. This authority and control is given along with control of all finances to the council (Alabama Code Title 11-43-56).
Remember James Whitehead has copies of all the incriminating documents (invoices and checks). Please verify with James Whitehead that he has the said documents. I assure you he does! Case closed! Guilty as charged!
Sincerely,
Concerned Citizen”
The Mayor is not doing her job. To claim she did not know she was doing anything illegal is not a defense — it is BS.
Below you will find some of the supporting documents.
Ask the Mayor and City Council to explain to the citizens of Columbia. Why taxpayer dollars are being misappropriated? And ask for an independent investigation of the police chief and his questionable actions.
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Why are you covering Columbiana, Ripp? It’s a small town and the folks there are on fort name basis with the city government. If the residents there have an issue then I am sure they can get to the bottom of it.
https://abc13.com/8934164/
FYI it is Columbia, Alabama, not Columbiana. With that said, “The Ripp Report” covers corruption in all of Alabama. The investigating and reporting of our corruption is a breath of fresh air to our citizens who have endured corruption from the last two mayors. Yes, we are a small town, but we too suffer from political corruption. Thanks Paul Ripp.
Whatever they call the hick town In those small towns everybody is related. So it is personal
This same stuff was on Reddit and was taken down for being false news. The ones who are making all the false accusations on the mayor and police chief of Columbia Al were on Reddit creating fake accounts posing to be citizens of Columbia and commenting to try and make like people agree. An actual citizen apparently got word and called them out for posing as him. I also see they are pulling the same stunt on this news article. As one of the comments shows it’s from the concerned citizen which is the one who has wrote the stuff in the article but on their comment at the bottom put thanks Paul Ripp. So now your posing as the man over this news platform. It’s clear that the one commenting was speaking as being a citizen of Columbia and Mr. Ripp isn’t. It’s a shame he already posted your false news article for you to turn around and pose as him. It’s more than obvious this “concerned citizen” as they call themselves will make up any lie they can and pose as whoever they can just to try and get their way.
I’m pretty sure “Concerned Citizen” mentioned in the article is the same one as the commenter, also named “Concerned Citizen”. The commenter said “Thanks Paul Ripp”. As in thank you Ripp for posting their article.
so the documents were fake? Seven complaints to the ethics commission are fake? the CPA is fake? the past city clerk is fake? the magistrate is fake? Complaints against the police are fake?
No they are not Fake but you are for sure.