Photo courtesy of Richard Cheatwood
Former Vestavia Hills police officer Richard Cheatwood said he plans to challenge Ashley Curry for mayor in 2025.
A former Vestavia Hills police officer said he plans to challenge Vestavia Hills Mayor Ashley Curry in the 2025 city election.
Richard Cheatwood, a 53-year-old Vestavia Hills resident who served 19 years in the Vestavia Hills Police Department before being fired in 2017, said he believes he could do a good job leading the city.
He doesn’t think the city manager position is needed and believes current city officials waste money and don’t shop around enough for the best deal when buying things, such as police motorcycles, he said.
He also didn’t appreciate city school officials trying to raise property taxes for schools last year, particularly at a time when inflation was pushing up the cost of so many things, including food. “Just because you have a little money doesn’t mean you want to spend it,” Cheatwood said.
He also would like to make it so that taxes going to schools are paid only by people who have children in schools, he said.
Cheatwood said the city needs to do more to solve stormwater flooding problems and needs to quit paying to have trash hauled to Montgomery to be sorted for recycling. He also would like Vestavia Hills to try to get separated from the Jefferson County Personnel Board and to re-establish a public safety dispatch team in Vestavia Hills instead of contracting out 911 service to Shelby County.
“Shelby County 911 doesn’t know Vestavia as well. They don’t really know the city,” Cheatwood said. “It’s a safety issue.”
He also thinks the city needs to provide its own towing service for the Police Department because towing companies don’t treat people right. He also believes the city of Vestavia Hills needs a new city attorney who does not also represent the Vestavia Hills Board of Education.
Cheatwood said the reason given for his termination in 2017 was “conduct unbecoming of a police officer.” He said city officials claimed he threatened to shoot up City Hall but said that wasn’t true.
Cheatwood said city officials were trying to force him into retiring with disability and sent him to a psychiatrist for mental and emotional issues and to try to determine if he was “fit for duty.”
Cheatwood said he filed a federal age discrimination lawsuit in August 2017 when he wasn’t promoted from officer to corporal, but he lost that suit. He also had two hearings with the Jefferson County Personnel Board and appealed his case to Jefferson County Circuit Court but lost in each of those instances, he said.
Cheatwood said he was charged with intimidating a witness after he texted the city’s “star witness” in the case against him but ended up pleading guilty to harassing communications, a misdemeanor, because he felt that was his best option.
His decision to run for mayor is not a case of “sour grapes,” he said. “I’m seven years removed from all that,” he said. Rather, he has spent 19 years in the city, has good relations with a lot of residents and thinks he could represent them well, he said.
The 2025 city election is scheduled for Aug. 26. The qualifying period to run for office is June 10-24.
