"There's nothing sexy about going to Florence," Irondale Mayor James Douglas Stewart, Jr. insisted at the January 23, 2024 council meeting as he dismissed questions from Councilwoman Cindy Cueller who was asking him to justify the cost of his decision to take 15 staffers and spend thousands of dollars for a trip over two hours to the north of the Irondale in December of 2023. Cueller was requesting an explanation and detailed receipts and invoices from the trip, but she never received the answers she was looking for.
Stewart didn't feel the need to explain or justify his decision to "get away." He said the trip included "team building" exercises and discussions about "the vision of the city." He noted that the council had, in the past, held its leadership retreat, one in Hoover.
Since then, large groups of Irondale staff have returned to Florance two additional times. Once in November 2024 and again in April 2025. Each trip costs residents thousands, leaving Councilwoman Cueller and concerned residents with questions.
The issue resurfaced on May 20, when the council reviewed expenditures from a trip in April. Cueller again pressed for details on the lack of transparency and concerns regarding how the expenses were coded and allocated between budget items and departments.
In a detailed summary expressing her concerns posted on Facebook this week, she explained, "While this may not be nefarious today, the choice of misrepresenting the facts can be very dangerous and misleading. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) were established to ensure accurate accounting, but when we move away from these principles we misrepresent what actually happened, and there can be unintended consequences. In this case, the P-card charge is not accurately reflected on the books."
One of her concerns was that "Mayor Stewart used his P-card to pay for 17 rooms for himself and 16 City employees who stayed overnight at the Renaissance Shoals Resort in Florence, AL. The total charge on the P-card was $10,434.97."
What is in Florence? The University of North Alabama and a program that requires the mayor to make monthly trips. In a Facebook post in November 2023, the mayor wrote, "Hopefully, this will be my last degree, as I just completed a two-day orientation for the doctoral program at the University of North Alabama. I am pursuing an Executive Doctor of Business Administration (EDBA) degree to help me become a better mayor. I can't wait to defend my dissertation in the Fall of 2026."
Two days later, the school made a post that included a photo of the mayor in a classroom, "On Friday, November 17th, the College launched our fourth EDBA Cohort. The Simba Cohort visited campus for their first residency weekend, getting to know their professors and each other, as they will be spending the next 3 years together in this doctorate program."
In an interview with 1819 News, Stewart said that the November trip was an "orientation" and that he didn't start classes until January 2024.
When asked why he chose to go to Florence instead of a location that would have cost less, such as Ross Bridge in Hoover, where the City Council held its retreat, he said, "Number one: the funding was budgeted for the trip. Number two: Because the council does not have the flexibility the way that the staff has, to be able to go away for a couple of days, to be able to get away, to be able to do a retreat, to do planning and get ready for the fiscal year, they wanted to do something close and that's why we ended up going to Ross Bridge."
When asked about concerns that the expenses weren't justified, "I think they are justified, unless someone can give me a reason why they're not justified."
He continued, "Mayor Stewart has nothing to gain by going to Florence and going to the courses that the staff went to that we had in Florence."
Speaking specifically to the repeated trips and training in Florence and at UNA, Cueller said, "The city has never been to Florence until the mayor started his program. We've never sent employees to UNA. There are other universities that offer these types of courses if that's what we need; UAB offers them at a lower cost."
In a video of the January 2024 meeting, Cueller's frustration is palpable as she sought answers for questions she'd been asking for weeks. She noted in her public comments that she emailed detailed questions to the mayor and copied the city attorney, April Danielson of Wallace Jordan, the same firm that represents the City of Hoover. In a separate email, she emailed Danielson a detailed list of concerns, saying, "I am emailing you to express several concerns and questions I have after reviewing all the credit card charges by the City's department heads and City staff." 1819 News reviewed those emails. In them, Danielson replied, "I have reviewed your email and do not have answers for your questions," further noting that she forwarded it to the mayor for his response.
In Cueller's post related to the budget inconsistencies, she said, "Having worked with auditors throughout my banking career and having served as treasurer for several civic and non-profit organizations, I find deviations from standard GAAP accounting practices to be deeply concerning. Such discrepancies raise serious questions about the accuracy, reliability, and integrity of financial information. They may also indicate underlying issues such as mismanagement, inadequate internal controls, or potential fraud."
See the full post, including credit card statements with her notes, on her Facebook page, and read the summary below.
Councilwoman Cindy Cuellar Comments Regarding Mayor Stewart’s P-Card Charge for Training & Conference by aprylmarie.fogel
In an interview with 1819 News, Cuellar said, "The reason I have concerns is because it appears we do not have adequate internal controls in place to catch any inaccurate information that we have on the books."
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