Birmingham City Councilor Joel Montgomery returned to City Hall today after being absent for nearly two months. In the early morning hours of April 7, Montgomery injured himself in a fall in a Five Points South parking lot. Shortly afterward, he was arrested on a charge of public intoxication. The police report from that night accused Montgomery of berating police officers with vulgarity and sexist statements.

“I haven’t been this drunk before I fucking went to Iraq,” Montgomery said, according to the police report.

Montgomery’s attorney has said the councilor was not drunk but rather he was disoriented by his head injury and has continued to have memory problems.

During the meeting Tuesday, Montgomery seemed to have healed, at least from his superficial wounds. The long bloody gash along his nose was gone, and the baseball-sized bruise on his forehead had diminished to just a small blemish.

During the public speakers portion of the Tuesday council meeting, one of Montgomery’s former council assistants, Betty Cannon, blasted him for neglecting his duties as a councilor and demanded that he resign. According to Cannon, she had called Montgomery’s office with a question during the councilor’s absence. In return, she received a letter from Montgomery’s office telling her she was a stupid person who needed to take classes at Jefferson State Community College.

“For someone who had a memory loss, you remembered me in a hurry,” she said to the councilor.

Cannon served as Montgomery’s assistant shortly after he was first elected in 2001. She was one of three female council assistants who either quit or were fired by Montgomery in the councilor’s first three years in office.

“I’m sick and tired of paying your salary while you’re doing whatever it is that you’re doing and wherever it is that you’re doing it,” Cannon said. “I’m sick and tired of paying for lawsuits for whatever you’re doing and wherever it is that you’re doing it.”

Last year the city of Birmingham settled a sexual discrimination suit against Montgomery out of court.

— Kyle Whitmire