Photo by Erin Nelson.
Richard Epstein, a Trussville resident and regular attendee at Trussville City Council meetings, stands in the council meeting room at the former Trussville City Schools building Sept. 21.
Trussville City Hall was packed Aug. 9, the night the Trussville City Council decided the fate of the Glendale Farms Preserve development.
Richard Epstein walked in 10 minutes before the meeting began, because they are typically sparsely attended, and looked for a seat.
“Glad everyone came to see me,” he said to everyone and no one in particular.
Epstein has lived in Trussville 20 years, and he started attending city council meetings to learn about the city, to find out if projects would or wouldn’t be done. He’s been asking questions since the beginning.
In 2004, he was pleading to city officials to ease traffic congestion on Chalkville Mountain Road. In 2007, he reported about issues with the lack of a traffic signal along U.S. 11. In June 2017, he asked four different questions during public comments. Minutes from a November 2020 meeting shows that Epstein “made a variety of suggestions.” Epstein tries to attend all city council meetings.
“You can learn what’s going on in the city and see if you can do anything that you think will help your area, too,” he said.
Epstein described himself as “bashful” as a joke, because to know a jokester is to know Epstein. Jokes aside, he said he was “outspoken.”
“When I think it’s for the betterment of the individuals or the surrounding area, I don’t mind speaking up,” he said. “They [the council] like to kid me, and I like to kid them, but I’m trying to say some things kidding hoping that they’ll really do something about it. In business, you’ve got to do it. If it’s wrong, you do something else.”
Epstein ran a family business in Birmingham for years — selling work and hunting clothes, boots and dry goods. When the family business closed, Epstein worked in purchasing for an iron and metal company, where he stayed for more than 20 years. When his division closed, he moved to an aluminum company to work in its purchasing department. When he retired, he drove to St. Vincent’s East to say hello to a friend who worked there. Epstein was introduced to volunteering, and he’s been doing that the past seven years. He greets people and makes up packets for patients.
“I enjoy going around and meeting the different people at the hospital,” Epstein said. “Quite a few of them know me and talk to me. I don’t care who it is, the executive office — I go in there all the time and say hello or give them a suggestion.”
Epstein is 79 years old and has had Type 1 diabetes for 65 of them. For a time, he served as president of a Birmingham diabetes society. Despite others saying it couldn’t be done, Epstein called up Bill Talbert in New York, an International Tennis Hall of Fame member who also had Type 1 diabetes. Epstein, looking for Talbert to visit Birmingham, name-dropped big-time doctors he knew. Not long after, Epstein picked Talbert up from the airport.
“You know, I get scared,” Epstein joked. “I’m afraid what they’re going to tell me. I’m very bashful.”
Perhaps the best part of Epstein’s public comments at Trussville City Council meetings is that Mayor Buddy Choat and the five council members understand it. They know he’s serious about city business, but they know he’ll approach issues in an amusing way.
There’s only so much they can do without help from the community. They all work hard. A lot of people don’t believe that, but I know it. They kid me, and when I tell them something, I kid around with them a lot. But a lot of things they do listen. I don’t know if they’re going to do them or not, but they all work hard, no matter who it is.
Richard Epstein
“He always brings some interesting comments to our council meetings,” Choat said. “One which is true, I’m sure, is that Carole, his wife, looks forward to him being at every meeting so he won’t be in the house.”
Epstein, married to Carole for 52 years with two kids and three grandkids, was quick to say that he wouldn’t want the mayor or council’s job because all residents can’t be satisfied.
“There’s only so much they can do without help from the community,” he said. “They all work hard. A lot of people don’t believe that, but I know it. They kid me, and when I tell them something, I kid around with them a lot. But a lot of things they do listen. I don’t know if they’re going to do them or not, but they all work hard, no matter who it is.”
Epstein has tried to help where he can. He’s asked the city to restripe yellow and white lines on roads. He even priced out a striping machine. He’s asked the city to place signs in front of his neighborhood to advise motorists not to block the intersection.
The two projects he’s focusing on right now are a new city swimming pool and a generator for the Trussville Civic Center.
Epstein told a story from years ago, when he ate lunch four times per week with a former Birmingham Police chief. One day, while walking down the street, Epstein and his friend saw a man on the ground, likely drunk. The chief knew the man, asked him what was wrong, pulled him up and told him that he thought he was going to stop drinking. The chief, Epstein said, told the man he better not see him in that condition the next time he saw him. They left, and the chief said something that has stuck with Epstein.
“’I talk to everybody and I want everybody to talk to me,’” Epstein recalled the chief saying. “To me, a person is a person. I don’t care who it is. And that’s the way I feel.”
Epstein knows a lot of “big” people, he said, but like he said, he’s outspoken. After telling that story, that life lesson, he couldn’t let it be the last word.
“They still need to paint the lines around the city, and build a pool and put a generator in.”
