With 2,000 people tuned in to the Facebook livestream and City Hall being nearly full, Orange Beach City Council's meeting July 7 devolved, again, over a year-long battle that has been brewing since the city's elections last fall.

The meeting was civil through the main agenda, with discussions including ice cream truck regulations and fire truck pricing. During the public comment time allotted for citizens to address council, however, a resident brought up a controversy surrounding police body camera footage from Sept. 2, 2024, of a response to a domestic call at the city's Coastal Resources building.

First reported in Lagniappe, the controversy stems from a 911 domestic violence call that was reported to Orange Beach police officers by a bartender at Tiki and Raw Bar at Safe Harbor Sportsman Marina on Terry Cove bartender who said she saw a naked man physically and verbally assaulting a woman on the balcony of a city-owned building. According to an anonymously leaked audio recording obtained and published by Lagniappe Aug. 18, 2025, the man involved identified himself as Mayor Tony Kennon when officers arrived at the Coastal Resources building.

The incident became a leading storyline of the August 2025 municipal election in Orange Beach “with opponents to the incumbent mayor since 2008 using the incident to say he was not fit for municipal leadership and Kennon and his family repeatedly taking to social media to discredit what they said were attacks on the family” according to previous reporting by GCM. Kenon won the election with nearly 60% of the votes for mayor.

At the time, the city denied a request to release the body camera footage from the incident. What remains is a lawsuit filed by Orange Beach resident C.C. Moreno, an attorney who has been making near-daily posts on social media about Kennon, the city and other allegedly involved stakeholders. Gulf Coast Media reported in April that a judge ruled March 31 her suit could move forward in part.

According to current state law, Alabama Code 12-21-3.1(b), police body camera footage is not considered public record.

As previously reported in a GCM article, Gulf Coast Media also filed a public records request for the footage last July, using Orange Beach website’s request form, but was denied. Orange Beach City Clerk and Procurement officer Renee Eberly said the city’s denial of the request was supported by the state Supreme Court in Something Extra Publishing Inc. v. Mack (2021). 

While the public records request itself remains in the lawsuit – Moreno originally filed seven counts, and four survived Judge Jeffery Beaverstock’s springtime ruling – other counts address “a free speech First Amendment claim against the city and Kennon individually; a claim the city followed a ‘policy or custom of nondisclosure and evidence concealment against the city’ supported by a 1983 New York state ruling on free speech; and a ‘mandamus or injunction against the city’ on public records, according to the lawsuit,” Gulf Coast Media contributing reporter John Mullen wrote in an April 1 article.

PUBLIC DISCOURSE

During the public comment portion of the meeting on Tuesday, Wendy Pickering, a resident and private investigator, spoke in favor of upholding the state laws regarding body-worn footage.

“It is simply a record of a police encounter, and sometimes it documents innocent people, innocent victims, sometimes it documents people at the lowest level in their lives,” she said. “Once that footage is released, the damage to that person's reputation and privacy can never be undone. The legislature recognized those privacy concerns when it enacted the law, and those protections exist for a reason.”

Pickering also expressed concern about the precedent of allowing one person to obtain body-worn footage who “wants subscribers,” referring to Moreno’s Facebook page, and wasn’t involved in the incident in question.

Pickering then accused Councilwoman Ginger Harrelson of “spreading lies” about her on Facebook including allegedly stalking three councilmembers, she said. This prompted Harrelson's husband, Hunter Harrelson, to make a comment from the crowd: “You are a liar,” he remarked.

Kennon then stopped Pickering from continuing to notify the police officer by the door, to which the councilwoman then asked, “Are you going to remove my husband from this meeting?”

“If he keeps interrupting me, I will,” Kennon replied. If he wants to speak, he can come to the stand, he said.

Later in the council meeting, Hunter Harrelson went to the stand to ask Kennon if he had ever met with private investigators to investigate himself, his wife and council members Jeff Silvers and Robert Stuart.

“Who the heck do you think you are walking up and talking to me like that?” Kennon said in response.

Councilwoman Harrelson then asked Kennon if he had ever met with any private investigator at his house.

“I have never met with a private investigator, ever … You prove it – please,” Kennon said. “If you got the evidence, bring the evidence.”

In response, Harrelson said, “I would like to bring the evidence by releasing the body cam footage.”

Harrelson, who was elected in 2025, was vocal about wanting the footage released to the public.

“I want to find a legal way to release the body cam footage,” Harrelson told Gulf Coast Media after leaving the July 7 executive session. “I want the City of Orange Beach to heal and move on, and there's enough public attention and scrutiny over this issue.”

She is one of three council members who have filed an ethics complaint against Kennon for their concerns about whether he overreached in the potential release of the police records from the 2024 incident. Harrelson, Robert Stuart and Jeff Silvers filed the complaint May 1.

According to a Lagniappe article published June 17, the ethics complaint alleges Kennon threatened council members in an April 21 executive session, parts of a council meeting that are held behind closed doors to the public, after they expressed they wanted to release the footage.

“I trust the ethics commission,” Kennon said. “I'm going to let them do their job and run its course and then let the chips fall where they may.”

The back-and-forth during the public meeting was condemned by residents in attendance.

“This arguing in the city council meeting is not the way things should be done," resident Sharon McFadden said from the public comment stand.

After an executive session ended after the regular meeting was adjourned, council members Pat Simpson and Harrelson remained optimistic that there is a way to move forward from the tensions among the city's elected leaders.

“It's not going to stay that way. It's going to get better. We just ask for patience,” said Simpson, who was appointed to council last month to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Jerry Johnson.

Simpson earned the seat with a 4-1 vote and Kennon being the only vote against the nomination.

“I have a great working relationship with each of my fellow council members,” Harrelson said. “We speak regularly every day, or every other day, and I know that we're all trying to do the best thing for the city of Orange Beach right now, and those decisions are very difficult decisions, unfortunately.”