Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon says he will stop attending executive sessions, complaining that reporting on the ethics complaint filed against him has destroyed confidentiality — and now one of the council members who filed that complaint is publicly asking whether he should stay in office at all.
Kennon was seen leaving a special-called City Council meeting as an executive session began to discuss pending litigation. Asked why he did not sit in, Kennon said published articles featuring the ethics complaint filed against him in May by council members Ginger Harrelson, Jeff Silvers and Robert Stuart — and follow-up reports — had made him unwilling to meet with other city officials behind closed doors.
“I’m not going to participate in any executive sessions mainly because there’s no confidentiality anymore,” Kennon said. “I’m not going to have my words and my statements taken out of context. Any executive session where I feel like I would be involved, even if it’s just from the mayor’s perspective, I’m not going to participate when I can’t count on confidentiality or truth.”
He did not say what he believed was untrue in the reports, saying he would address it at a later date.
‘He should seriously consider whether continuing to serve’
Councilwoman Ginger Harrelson, one of the three complainants, was direct in response.
“It’s certainly a choice and is indicative of the state of affairs in Orange Beach,” she said. “I speak with each member of the council every day, or every few days, so we have a great working relationship. The mayor is the person who doesn’t want to work with us.”
Then she went further, questioning whether Kennon should remain in office at all if he plans to keep skipping meetings with the council.
“I believe that if the Mayor no longer wishes to participate in work sessions, executive sessions, and the collaborative responsibilities that are part of the office, then he should seriously consider whether continuing to serve is in the best interest of the citizens of Orange Beach,” Harrelson said. “The people elected the Mayor not only to preside over public meetings, but also to engage in the work that takes place before those meetings.”
Kennon, when asked, said that if he missed a meeting it was because he wasn’t needed at the meeting.
A rift that started with a video
The breakdown traces to the dispute over body camera footage of Kennon speaking with police inside the Coastal Resources Building after a 911 call in the early hours of Labor Day 2024. Kennon has repeatedly denied hitting his wife that night but has admitted he was in the building. On May 1, councilors Harrelson, Silvers and Stuart filed an ethics complaint alleging that Kennon threatened political and legal action — and stopped short of threatening assault, the complaint claims — when councilors floated releasing the footage as a settlement strategy in a federal lawsuit brought by attorney C.C. Dixon Moreno.
Council members said the rift opened on April 1, when they asked whether releasing the footage was prudent legal strategy. Kennon became visibly upset, they said, and had the council watch the video, but council members still sought separate legal representation — a move City Attorney Jamie Logan questioned, according to the complaint. Harrelson said the goal was to save the city money and settle the lawsuit, while giving the council its own layer of legal protection.
Since then, the relationship has withered. Harrelson said Kennon has skipped at least one of the last two work sessions and stopped speaking with her entirely. “I have not personally spoken to the mayor in months,” she said.
More troubling to some council members: at least three times since the footage question arose, the council was not informed of substantive filings in the Moreno lawsuit — a partial dismissal ruling, discovery filings and an attorney leaving the case.
“The only reason I have any idea about what’s going on in any of these lawsuits is because I have a PACER account and I have an Alacourt account,” Harrelson said. Logan, who is responsible for keeping the council updated, declined to comment.
Government goes on
The tension spilled publicly into June, when the council rejected Kennon’s nominee for a vacant council seat and instead appointed Pat Simpson — with Kennon casting the only no vote, banging his gavel and threatening to remove Councilman Robert Stuart from the meeting.
Council members say the city will function regardless. “We will continue to conduct city business in the normal fashions that we’re allowed to,” said Silvers, who serves as mayor pro tempore. Under state law, a mayor who misses council meetings for 90 consecutive days can be removed from office — though work sessions and executive sessions do not count toward that total.
Harrelson, for her part, suggested the mayor’s absence might not be entirely unwelcome.
“I think it will be a much more pleasant experience,” she said. “I think that it’s a funny characterization to say that we can’t be trusted. What happens in the executive session is definitely confidential, but when you cross a line and you threaten another elected official, I don’t think that that level of conduct would be privileged or confidential.”
Councilman Jack Robertson declined to comment. Councilman Pat Simpson did not respond to a request for comment. Kennon, facing an October hearing before the Alabama Ethics Commission, has said he will respect that process — while governing, for now, at arm’s length from the council he was elected to lead.