CULLMAN, Ala. – The Colony Town Council had a fairly quiet agenda Tuesday evening until it reached the public comment section. At that point, former Mayor Donnis Leeth rose to challenge current Mayor Curtis Johnson and his supporters on the issue of the distribution of USDA food boxes in the community. The Colony Carpenter’s Cabinet food pantry distributes the grocery packs to anyone who comes to pick one up on distribution days, but Johnson also picks up boxes separately in the name of the town, and Leeth, who has picked up boxes in the name of the town for distribution at the pantry, accused the group of refusing to give food to anyone who lives outside the town.
Johnson countered, “The food boxes I get, that’s in the name of the town of Colony. What y’all do out there (at Carpenter’s Cabinet), that’s y’all’s business. I don’t say anything to y’all about what y’all do out there.”
When Stephanie Marshall, a resident attending the meeting, accused Johnson of refusing a box to a Damascus resident, Johnson responded, “I give out those boxes as fair as possible.” Councilwoman Jasmine Cole spoke in Johnson’s defense, stating that the Mayor had offered the woman a box and she had turned it down since she had already gotten a box from the pantry.
When asked by Marshall why the town and food pantry did not work together at the Educational Complex- location of the food pantry- as they did in the past, Johnson said, “That’s the Carpenter’s Cabinet that gives them out there, this (at Town Hall) is for the town of Colony, right here at the Town Hall.”
Leeth broke in, saying, “It don’t run that way,” to which Johnson replied, “Yes, it do. You’re not the Mayor anymore. I am.”
As the verbal altercation intensified, Johnson turned to a Cullman County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) deputy attending the meeting and told him to escort Leeth out. The Sheriff’s Office usually does not send deputies to Colony meetings, but have dispatched them occasionally after the new administration took office, amid ongoing conflict within the council, which often involves local residents in attendance as well.
Leeth left without further incident.
After his departure, Marshall spoke again. Identifying herself to the council and crowd as Johnson’s cousin, she told the Mayor that Colony has become a laughing stock in Cullman County and concluded, “Mayor Johnson, you need to resign.”
Resident Bettye Green took the floor next, challenging what she sees as cliquishness within the Colony community that prevents progress. She added, “Until this Colony stands together as one, long as a person doing their job and doing to the best of their ability to overcome, y’all still going to be at the bottom. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Somebody’s got to get a level head.”
Turing to Johnson, she challenged the Mayor to take charge of the council and town government, and to stop listening to the opinions of others, “because we ain’t going to stand, the way it is now.”
The Colony Town Council meets on the second and fourth Tuesday evenings of each month, with work session at 5 p.m. and regular meeting following.
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