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SATURDAY-SUNDAY • OCTOBER 1-2, 2016

THEWETUMPKAHERALD.COM

VOL. 11, NO. 37

City delays approval of budget

By COREY ARWOOD Staff Writer

The city council convened in a special called session Friday to vote on delaying approval of the upcoming city budget by roughly a month and a half from its original Oct. 1 deadline. The initial proposed extension of the 2015-2016 budget was 30 days in a city notice attributed to Mayor Jerry Willis

sent Thursday. The budget extension, the statement said was, “to allow the city to conduct business.” After the meeting Candy Masters, city clerk, said, “We have to have some type of budget in place on Oct. 1 and until we finalize some of the numbers the council is extending the current budget…” Some council members seemed to agree the extension was called for in

order only to allow more time for review. Council member Kevin Robbins of District 1, and Greg Jones of District 5, said it was just a way to allow more time for decisions, with both saying there was no specific concern or reason for the postponement. “We just want to be as fiscally responsible as we can,” said Robbins. Council member, Percy Gill of District 2, however, offered more details about

some of the issues he said he had with the initial preview of the budget the council members were privy to. He said his concerns arose when he saw the proposed funding for programs like the Boys and Girls Club and funding for local schools. He said the suggestion from the figures he saw was that the budget defunded See BUDGET • Page 5

Holton case headed to grand jury

Police reports woman choked daughter with belt

By COREY ARWOOD Staff Writer

Millbrook police officials reported a local woman was arrested on an attempted murder charge for allegedly choking her daughter with a belt when she refused to get out of bed for school. The bond of Jessica A. Cobern, 33, was set at $100,000 in her initial court appearance Thursday and a condition was added to the bond that she make no contact with her daughter directly or through a third party, said C.J. Robinson, chief assistant dis- Cobern trict attorney with Alabama’s 19th Judicial Circuit in Elmore County. Robinson said the DA’s office made the request to prevent any attempt to sway the statement or the account of the victim as police investigated the incident. The MPD report indicated that Cobern had been in Elmore County Jail since Tuesday. The daughter was said to be a student at Stanhope Elmore High School and, according to the account, MPD went to the school in the morning on reports of an See CHOKE • Page 5

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Submitted / The Herald

Millbrook Mayor Al Kelley (right off center in red shirt and jacket) speaks to the assembled crowd during Tuesday’s Millbrook City Council meeting. Also pictured with Kelley are members of his family.

A BIG HONOR

Millbrook municipal complex to be named after mayor By WILLIAM CARROLL Managing Editor

Millbrook Mayor Al Kelley was honored by the Millbrook City Council Tuesday as the council voted to name the city’s municipal building after the longtime city leader. Kelley, who is beginning his 6th term, has served the city of Millbrook as its mayor for 20 years. During an interview with the Herald Thursday, Kelley said that he was aware that the honor was going to be bestowed upon him Tuesday evening. “It is really hard to keep secrets around here, especially at city hall,” he said, noting that when he first found out he wasn’t crazy about the idea but that he knows it is a huge honor. “Usually you have to wait until you die for this sort of thing.”

By COREY ARWOOD Staff Writer

Eclectic police officials reported the arrest of a Montgomery man who was accused of raping two underage girls in the Eclectic area and is currently being held in Elmore County jail on a $75,000 bond. Police Chief Robert Head said the U.S. Marshals served the arrest of Colby Raybon Peebles, Peebles 23, on Sept. 22. Peebles had his bond raised in a hearing Monday, however, from an initial See ARREST • Page 3

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Man arrested in alleged Voting records opened in election contest rape of two girls By COREY ARWOOD Staff Writer

SUNDAY: HIGH 88 LOW 60

Kelley said he had nothing to do with the naming of the building noting, that it was the idea of the current council. Kelley’s name will adorn the municipal complex built several years ago to deal with space issues. “We spent a lot of time and hard work getting that building built,” Kelley said. “Our police department outgrew the building it was in at the time. We started looking at some plans. We didn’t want anything too fancy, just a basic functional building. No crystal chandeliers or mahogany furniture.” Now that “functional building” will carry the longtime mayor’s name. “It was a really nice resolution they did,” Kelley said about the council. “It really is a huge honor. I was lucky in that I was able to have all my family there.”

In a preliminary hearing the request of Jesse Madison Holton’s attorney to lower his $1 million bond was denied, and an Elmore County district judge said he found probable cause on two murder charges, motioning the case to proceed before a grand jury. The hearing itself was conducted around the testimony of an Elmore County Sheriff’s Office Investigator who headed the investigation into the shooting deaths of Jesse Holton’s parents Mike and April Holton. ECSO investigator Richard Brouillard was questioned by Assistant District Attorney Mandy Johnson followed by Holton’s attorney Tom Azar. Brouillard recounted the timeline of the day’s events and the ECSO’s involvement in the case of the shooting deaths of Jesse Holton’s 37-year-old parents. Both sides discussed the ECSO investigation with Brouillard focusing on details that were seemingly key aspects of the case. One such issue was the pair of handcuffs Holton was said to have been in around the time of the double shooting, the other

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Voting documents were reopened for an election contest case filed by a council candidate who narrowly lost last month to the incumbent council member in the Wetumpka District 2 race. Now, the attorneys’ for Lewis Washington Sr., who lost last month’s election and filed the suit, and Percy Gill, the incumbent council member, said they would begin examining the documents to determine if there are any inconsistencies and which side of the vote those might apply to. Washington’s attorney, Albert Agricola Jr., said Thursday, one day after the meeting, that they were able to confirm from the documents they

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examined that there were “a number of voters” that voted in district 2 that did not reside in the district. The meeting itself, where city and county officials met while the voting results, ballots and absentee ballots were copied, was earlier said by the city attorney to be private and that media would not be allowed in the process. Edwards called it an “in-camera” review, and said it was an opportunity for all parties to examine and make copies while keeping the voting information private until after the trial. Gill’s attorney, Martin Weinberg, said there were still a number of questions over how those that allegedly voted out of district were allowed to in See CONTEST • Page 5