FAIRHOPE, Ala. - Editor’s note: This article is the first in a series on the Friends of Fairhope Police bank account, as well as ethics investigations and related issues involving state and local government officials and staff. Future articles will appear in The Fairhope Courier and online at www.BaldwinCountyNow.com.

Mayor Tim Kant confirmed Tuesday that he had filed an ethics complaint against Police Chief Bill Press, alleging use of a private bank account called the Friends of Fairhope Police to pay off-duty police officers for moonlighting jobs such as traffic control at weddings, polo matches and other events.

“All I wanted was some clarification about what we can and can’t do for off-duty (officers),” Kant said during a radio show Tuesday morning on WABF 1220 AM. “We have a policy that the council passed in 1999 that says the city doesn’t get involved in that. Off-duty officers are paid directly by the organization. And that was changed (by Press), and I’ve been trying to fix it.”

Two city department heads or managers expressed concerns about the account and how it was being used, Kant said, which led to his hiring private attorney David Whetstone, who advised him to write a letter to the Alabama Ethics Commission about the issue.

The question of whether Kant had filed an ethics complaint first surfaced publicly during the mayor’s annual State of the City address March 27. He declined to comment about the question at that time, which was submitted in writing by local activist Paul Ripp.

But the issue took on a new urgency Monday night when Press raised the subject himself at the end of the March 28 City Council meeting.

“I sent you an e-mail letter earlier requesting that you resolve an issue that has arisen as a result of an inquiry or an allegation of misdoing, supposedly on my part, with the ethics commission,” Press said. “This has to do specifically with off-duty employment and how we pay officers.”

Press delivered a three-page letter to the council Monday and said he had also sent an e-mail to them describing a procedure he recommended to have the city pay officers directly, instead of them being paid by individuals and organizations, or through the account.

The letter makes a number of allegations about the use of the Friends of Fairhope Police account, which he said was first opened by Kant in October 2007.

“This account was established in order to achieve goals using private donations from various citizens in order to address issues that City monies could not be used for,” Press stated in his March 28 letter addressed to Council President Lonnie Mixon. “Although this account bounced from bank to bank, registers were kept from October 2007 through March 2010. Shortly after I was hired in July 2009, I discovered that the account, from October 2007 through December 2009, was improperly using the City tax ID number to purchase items such as alcohol for city employee parties. We much later learned that these parties appeared to be for the Mayor’s political friends.”

Press closed the account for those reasons, he wrote, and then reopened it with the advice of City Attorney Marion “Tut” Wynne.

“The current account is divided into general donated funds, SWAT and Mounted Patrol,” Press stated. “Unsolicited donors have and continue to contribute toward these areas and purchases that the City cannot provide.”

Investigators with the state ethics commission, as well as the Baldwin County District Attorney’s Office have interviewed Press and obtained documents from his office, he wrote. He stated he had also been presented with an Administrative Resolution Form by a special agent with the ethics commission, which he declined to fill out, because it would have required an admission of guilt regarding personal gain or financial benefit for a misdemeanor violation of the ethics laws, which he said did not occur.

In addition to the alleged investigations by state and county agencies, Press said that Assistant Police Chief Terry Sanders sent information about the “impropriety of the original account” (opened by Kant) to the FBI in the early part of 2009, when Sanders was interim police chief.

“We believe that we have been righteous in closing and reopening this account,” Press stated in his letter. “We also believe that we clearly demonstrated that there was and continues to be no impropriety on our part in any of its use.”

Press declined to answer questions about the complaint, and the county DA’s office did not respond immediately to a request for comment

For now, off-duty police officers will be paid directly by individuals and organizations instead of by the city or from the private account, according to instructions by the council Monday night.

“I have approached this (issue) several times with the mayor and I was denied every time,” Press told the council Monday, apparently regarding a procedure he says should be implemented to have the city pay off-duty officers directly instead of privately. “I am not going to put myself on the line if this is in question, and it is possibly in question.”