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Photo by Savannah Schmidt
Drew Lolley, the managing partner/general manager at Courtesy GMC, poses at his desk on Feb. 6, 2025.
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Photo by Savannah Schmidt
Ben Horton stands on the Civitan Park Bridge in Trussville, Alabama on Jan. 13, 2024. Horton is an inventor that provides products to fire departments.
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Jim Miller, candidate for Trussville City Council
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Kimberly Farr, candidate for Trussville City Council
Whichever way the upcoming Trussville City Council elections go this summer, one pattern has emerged — people who haven’t run for office are taking the opportunity to do so now.
This year’s elections for city council may be the most wide open in years. One reason is the retirement of longtime Mayor Buddy Choat. Two city council members, Lisa Bright and Ben Short, are running for mayor, and incumbent Councilman Perry Cook is not seeking reelection, leaving three places without incumbents. That has opened the door for residents who haven’t run for political office to step up.
At least four political newcomers — Ben Horton, Drew Lolley, Jim Miller and Kimberly Farr — have announced their intent to run.
Horton, an engineer who owns Cahaba Fire Company, was sitting at the Civic Center when Choat announced he would not seek reelection.
“All of a sudden, Lisa Bright announced that she was running for mayor, and then shortly after, Ben Short announced he was running. And I thought to myself, well, we have to vacate two seats on the city council,” Horton said. “Who’s going to sit there?”
Horton said he wanted to run as someone who reflected the city’s values.
“If we elect those people intentionally, then we can help mold our city the way that we think it should be to be able to achieve Trussville’s values for a long-term vision,” Horton said.
Trussville has five places on the council, and all are at-large elections, meaning each candidate can declare for any place without regard to geographic boundaries within the city. Dan Weinrib, city clerk of Trussville, said candidates will have between June 10 and June 24 to qualify. When they qualify, they will declare which place they will run for.
Lolley, general manager at Courtesy GMC, said running for office is a natural extension of his work in the community.
“I think that, you know, being able to be part of the process and make decisions that will kind of help shape the future of Trussville, I want to be involved in that,” he said.
Miller, a senior acquisition and operations program management analyst at the U.S. Missile Defense Agency who has retired from the U.S. Army, had long considered public service but planned to wait until his children were older. However, after observing some recent council decisions, he felt the time to act was now.
“I really stood out, and I prayed about it for about the last year and a half about whether this is the time that God wanted me to run or not, or if I needed to wait until a different time,” he said. “And it just seemed like the answer kept coming back to run, that this was the time.”
Kimberly Farr, the human resources director at SPOK Automation, is another newcomer. Farr, who serves on the Trussville Industrial Development Authority and is vice president of the Trussville Chamber of Commerce board, said she felt like it was time to serve the community even more, even though she hadn’t planned on running for office.
“That was never really on my radar, until I got involved here,” Farr said. “And I was like if I'm going to serve, I want to serve in a bigger way.”
