When friends from her Sunday School class knocked on the door of her Vestavia Hills home in the middle of the day last spring, Beverly Mims said she knew something was wrong. "I had felt uneasy that morning, like something was off. My heart skipped a beat when I heard them at the door," Mims said. "They had my husband, Ronnie on the phone and told me he needed to talk to me. But I never dreamed that what he would say was that our son was dead." [continues 1678 words]
The failure of Calera's new city budget to provide requested funding for additional police officers means the city won't be able to join a countywide drug task force, Police Chief Jim Finn said. Finn had requested Calera hire an additional six police officers to help patrol the rapidly growing city. The budget allocated funding for two. The chief said he had hoped to be able to assign an officer to the drug task force full-time, but he would need more officers before he could spare one for task force duty. [continues 248 words]
