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By NOAH WORTHAM | Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – Mayor David Mitchell delivered a proclamation declaring January 2025 as Human Trafficking Awareness Month and various departments gave updates during a regularly scheduled Columbiana City Council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 7.

During the meeting, Susan Crow with Children’s Aid Society of Alabama, addressed the council and expressed her gratitude and support for the mayor’s proclamation.

“We’re very grateful that the city of Columbiana is going to make a proclamation recognizing this month,” Crow said. “Human trafficking, and specifically, from my perspective, the trafficking of children for both sex and labor purposes, is a problem that none of us would like to believe happens. But it actually is a much more significant problem in all of our communities that most of us think.”

Council Member Ricky Ruston addressed Crow after her comments and asked if human trafficking was a phenomenon that takes place in Shelby County.

“Absolutely,” Crow said. “It goes on, truly in all 67 counties in Alabama.”

Crow highlighted that human trafficking is not necessarily always a form of kidnapping and references anytime that something of value is exchanged for sex or labor that is not actually going to the person. Crow also mentioned the ongoing dangers of sextortion that could affect children and teenagers.

“It’s a growing problem, and we are trying to grow the solutions to it throughout the state,” Crow said.

After Crow’s comments, Mitchell delivered the proclamation to the council and read it aloud for those in attendance and viewing online.

“The first step in eliminating human trafficking is to educate the community,” Mitchell said in his proclamation. “We must work to ensure that all residents are aware of this problem, how to spot it and how to report it. We must work together as a community to bring victims to safety and to punish human traffickers.”

During the meeting, the city’s various department heads addressed the council on their individual sectors and Columbiana Fire Chief Johnny Howard addressed the council with an update on the state of the fire department after completing 2024.

“We finished up all of our training, our inspections, our certifications on equipment, all (those) types of things,” Howard said. “Everything passed that we do currently have in service.”

Howard told the City Council that the department is low of staffing and shared that the recent recruiting and retention coordinator hire resigned due to a family emergency.

The recruiting and retention coordinator position was made possible thanks to grant funding and is part of a plan to push for the hiring of at least 20 volunteer firefighters over the next four years.

“At this current time, we don’t have that position filled,” Howard said. “So, we’ll be trying to reach out and refill that.”

Ali Payne, Columbiana’s manager of community services and senior center director, addressed the council during the meeting and shared positive metrics from December’s Christmas festivities.

“December was successful,” Payne said. “It was a good month. It seemed really long, but it was a good one.”

Thanks to an AI program the department is utilizing to measure cell phone pings, Payne shared that there were approximately 31,700 visits to Columbiana’s downtown area.

“It’s interesting to know that 47% of those visitors are from outside of Columbiana, Wilsonville and Shelby,” Payne said. “So, those are people coming in from other parts of the county and the Birmingham metro area. So, that’s good stuff. That was exciting.”

The next regularly scheduled Columbiana City Council meeting will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 6 p.m. at Columbiana City Hall and is open to the public. City Council meetings are also available to watch online on the city’s official YouTube channel at Youtube.com/@cityofcolumbianaalabama.