FAIRHOPE, Ala. - A nonprofit group established last year to support local police has a majority of city employees on its initial board of directors.

Incorporated as a state nonprofit group on March 25, 2010, that first board of directors for the Friends of Fairhope Police Department includes the city’s top two cops and city administrator, as well as the city’s volunteer chairman of the Financial Advisory Committee and Fairhope Airport Authority, and the president of the local bank where the account for the group was opened, according to the city attorney.

That bank account and an earlier account at a different bank, which is now closed, have been used to pay off-duty police officers, according to city officials and staff.

That earlier bank account was closed on March 25, 2010, according to city staff.

The city attorney said he did the legal work to help set up the state nonprofit group, and that he and the accounting firm that does the city’s annual audit assisted in preparing the group’s application for federal tax-exempt status, which is pending.

Those bank accounts and their use to pay off-duty police officers are the focus of an ethics complaint filed by Mayor Tim Kant against Police Chief Bill Press, according to Kant. Investigations by the Alabama Ethics Commission and county district attorney’s office are ongoing, according to Press.

For now, off-duty police are paid directly by the organizations or individuals who hire them, according to an existing written city policy and instructions given by the council on March 28, at its meeting when the ethics complaint regarding the issue first came to light.

According to the city attorney, the FFPD board members include: Press, Assistant Police Chief Terry Sanders, City Administrator Gregg Mims, Chuck Zunk (chairman of FAC and FAA), and Tim Rosson, South Alabama president of BBVA Compass bank, which has a branch in Fairhope.

Editor’s note: This is the latest article in a series on off-duty employment of police officers and other local ethics and government accountability issues. Follow the series in The Fairhope Courier and online at www.baldwincountynow.com.