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By TYLER RALEY | Staff Writer

CHELSEA – The Chelsea City Council presented a proclamation declaring January 2025 as Human Trafficking Awareness and Prevention Month during a regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 7.

Chelsea Mayor Tony Picklesimer recited the proclamation, highlighting the city’s commitment to strengthening awareness and resources in regards to trafficking, while also supporting a more coordinated response to preventing such actions.

The proclamation was received by Pam Rasberry, a victim advocate at Trafficking Hope, who thanked the City Council for making the declaration in a time that she believes awareness is desperately needed.

“We want to really spread awareness to all of our communities about human trafficking. It’s happening all around us in all of our communities, all of our cities (and) our counties,” Rasberry said. “We just thank you so much mayor and council for your commitment and partnership in bringing awareness to human trafficking and doing this proclamation because awareness is so key and we all have to be that voice to let people know what’s going on.”

Trafficking Hope is an organization that works with human trafficking victims to help them get out of their situations through a variety of means and materials, while also striving to raise awareness on the issue.

In other news, the City Council and Shelby County Sheriff’s Office honored Councilmember Cody Sumners for his retirement from the organization after more than 26 years of service. There will be more details in a future article.

Prior to the meeting, the council removed resolutions 1224 and 1225, which were set forth to acknowledge and accept donations of property. The donations, however, have not been received.

The council also struck down resolution 1226, which was in place to approve a $10,000 donation to the Chelsea Alabama Amateur Radio Club. The council decided after discussion in the pre-council meeting that they would not proceed with the allocation of the funds before taking it off of the agenda.

The Chelsea City Council approved a resolution to approve an ABC License for Liquor Hub. The approved license to be used is a Lounge Retail Liquor – Class II license, which was presented as a result of Liquor Hub changing its location to 48 Chesser Crane Road.

In addition, the council unanimously voted on a motion to suspend the rules for immediate consideration of a proposed ordinance. The ordinance was to approve an annexation request that was submitted by Frederick and Alejandra Estrada for the property at 405 Forest Lakes Drive to become part of the corporate area for the city of Chelsea. The property consists of 0.274 acres, which was ultimately unanimously voted to be annexed in.