The Foley City Council held its regular work session and meeting Monday, Aug. 3, at 4 p.m. in the council chambers at Foley City Hall, tackling a lengthy agenda that spanned rezoning requests, festival permits, personnel changes and public works items.
The Aug. 3 session followed the city’s standard format: a 4 p.m. work session in which council members walk through each agenda item with department heads and take questions before any votes, followed by the regular meeting where formal action is taken. The work session is where Foley’s council typically hears the details — staff recommendations, cost estimates, public comment — and residents who want to follow a specific item closely generally attend both halves of the afternoon.
Council members held public hearings on proposed amendments to the Magnolia Walk East Development District and considered the second reading of an ordinance rezoning more than 23 acres of land near Magnolia Walk East to an extended business district. Public hearings give affected property owners and neighbors a formal opportunity to speak for or against a proposed change before the council votes, and second readings mark the final step in the city’s ordinance process. Extended business zoning allows a broader mix of commercial uses than conventional neighborhood commercial districts, a classification cities along the Baldwin County corridor have used to accommodate the region’s fast-changing retail landscape along major highways.
Proclamations and a Student Entrepreneurship Presentation
The council also issued proclamations recognizing National Health Center Week, Glowing Green for 811 Week and Constitution Week. National Health Center Week honors community health centers and the staff who provide primary care to patients regardless of ability to pay, a mission that serves the South Baldwin communities where clinic access has not always kept pace with growth. Glowing Green for 811 Week promotes the national 811 call-before-you-dig service, the one-call utility locating program that excavators and homeowners are required to notify before any digging project so buried gas, electric, water and telecommunications lines can be marked. Constitution Week, observed annually in September, marks the anniversary of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution.
Also on the agenda was a presentation on the South Baldwin Entrepreneurship Program, part of the EPIC South Baldwin Student Entrepreneurship initiative. The program connects students in South Baldwin County schools with training, mentoring and competitions aimed at turning classroom ideas into functioning small businesses — an economic development approach that invests in the next generation of local owners rather than only recruiting outside companies. Council presentations of this kind typically give program organizers a platform to report results, thank local partners and preview coming school-year activities.
Council members took up the establishment of gymnasium fees and usage policies for the Foley Activity Center, along with new speed limit and traffic control ordinances covering the Bay Forest Estates and Wolf Bay Point subdivisions. Fee schedules and usage rules for the Activity Center’s gymnasium govern how leagues, school groups, churches and private residents can reserve and share the space as the city’s recreational programming expands. The new traffic ordinances, meanwhile, set enforceable speed limits and control measures on subdivision streets — a routine but consequential step that lets police actually cite speeders on streets that previously carried no posted limit.
Library Restructuring
A major item on the agenda was a resolution to adjust the city’s pay classification plan and restructure personnel positions for the new Foley Community Library, part of the broader transition as the library moves into its expanded facility.
Moving a library into a substantially larger building changes nearly every staffing question: more square footage to supervise, more programming space to schedule, more technology to maintain and more daily visitors to serve. Restructuring the positions and pay classifications is the administrative groundwork for that transition, creating the job descriptions and salary grades the city needs before it can recruit and retain the staff the expanded facility requires.
Council members also reviewed pay classification amendments establishing new positions for the incoming Destination & Events Services Department, along with additional pay classification changes across multiple departments intended to better align job duties with operational needs.
The Destination & Events Services Department reflects Foley’s evolution as a Baldwin County destination city. With Heritage Park, the downtown shopping district, the OWA entertainment complex nearby and a calendar of festivals that now fills much of the year, the city has effectively run events and tourism promotion through scattered departments for years; a dedicated department consolidates scheduling, permitting, marketing and venue management under one roof. Pay classification amendments sound like dry administrative housekeeping, but they are the mechanism by which a city government reorganizes itself — redefining what a job is worth, creating new titles and ensuring that departments competing for the same skilled workers can offer salaries grounded in the same classification system.
Festivals, Events and Community Requests
The council reviewed a resolution approving the rental of Heritage Park for the Tacos and Tequila Festival, including a variance allowing alcohol sales at the event. Heritage Park, with its amphitheater and event lawn in the heart of downtown, is Foley’s signature festival venue, and alcohol sales at city-park events require a specific variance from the council’s normal park rules — an approval that typically comes with conditions on fencing, identification checks and security staffing.
Members also discussed a resolution granting the Jehovah’s Witness Community use of Heritage Park to display free Bible-based literature, and a request from Calvary Chapel of Foley to use Foley Park for community prayer. Both requests fall into the routine category of community-group park use, and they illustrate the range of organizations that use Foley’s parks — from commercial festival promoters to congregations holding outdoor services and displays.
Additional items included approval of street closures in downtown Foley for the Hometown Halloween event, set for Thursday, Oct. 29, and street closures and Heritage Park usage for the 2026 Society of Black Hats Foley Witches Ride charity event and after-party. Street closures for downtown events require coordination with the police and public works departments, and they are among the most visible ways the city supports the volunteer organizations that run Foley’s seasonal traditions. The Witches Ride, in which costumed participants parade through downtown to raise money for charity, has become one of the area’s most popular fall events.
The council also considered authorizing the city to host the first annual Gulf Coast Equipment “Roadeo” and authorizing the mayor to negotiate an agreement with OWA. A “Roadeo” is a skills competition in which equipment operators are scored on precision and safety running loaders, excavators and similar machinery through obstacle courses — an event with obvious appeal for a city whose public works fleet operates daily on the same machines. The OWA agreement points toward continued cooperation between the city and the entertainment complex on events and promotion.
Public Safety and Infrastructure
Council members reviewed a resolution to rescind a prior resolution and move forward with purchasing two electric Chevrolet Blazers and emergency equipment for the police department.
Rescinding and re-issuing a purchase resolution is a common procedural correction, typically made when pricing, specifications or available funding change between the original vote and delivery. The purchase marks a step toward electrifying Foley’s police fleet, following a broader pattern among Gulf Coast municipal fleets that have begun adding electric vehicles as model availability and charging infrastructure mature.
Members also discussed declaring a badge and service weapon belonging to Lt. Tony Fuqua as surplus items. Surplus declarations are the standard mechanism by which a department formally retires property that has reached the end of its service life or belongs to a retiring officer, clearing it from the city’s inventory.
The council considered authorizing the mayor to execute a memorandum of understanding tied to the TFM project and discussed amending a prior resolution to authorize agreements with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Alabama Department of Transportation for final reimbursement on the eight-unit T-Hangar construction project at the Foley Municipal Airport.
The reimbursement agreements close out the funding loop on the T-Hangar project, in which the city builds hangar capacity at its municipal airport with a share of costs reimbursed through federal and state aviation programs. Airport hangars are in steady demand across Baldwin County as the county’s pilot population and business aviation traffic grow, and a completed eight-unit hangar adds revenue-producing capacity for the airport while serving based aircraft that would otherwise wait years for space.
Members also reviewed an updated professional services proposal from GeoCon for engineering testing on the First Responder Hurricane Safe Room. Testing services during construction — soil compaction, concrete strength, structural materials verification — document that the safe room is built to the enhanced standards such shelters require, standards that must be certified for the structure to serve its designed purpose of protecting residents and first responders during a major hurricane.
Other Business
The council considered the reappointment of Bill Swanson to the Foley Historic Commission and approved the September 2026 retirement awards. Historic commission appointments preserve continuity on the board that reviews work in Foley’s historic districts and advises the council on preservation matters. Retirement awards honor city employees closing out their careers with the municipality.
Members discussed a proposal regarding the replat of Lot 1 in the 98 West Subdivision and considered authorizing the dedication of a 30-foot-wide strip of city-owned real property. Replats redraw lot lines to accommodate revised development plans, while property dedications transfer land for public purposes such as rights of way or utility easements.
The council also discussed accepting a subrecipient grant agreement amendment from the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program. The Mobile Bay National Estuary Program coordinates restoration and water-quality work across the coastal counties, and subrecipient agreements channel grant funding to cities for projects such as stormwater improvements, habitat restoration and watershed planning — work directly relevant to Foley’s position in the Wolf Bay and Perdido watersheds.
Several public nuisance hearings were also on the agenda, including resolutions to declare weeds a public nuisance at 500 Greentree Lane in the Regency Pointe I subdivision, at 521 W. Carolyn Avenue and at a solar farm on County Road 65, along with hearings on junk accumulation at 717 E. Michigan Avenue and in the public right of way at 616 W. Magnolia Avenue.
Nuisance hearings are the enforcement end of Foley’s property maintenance codes. When grass, weeds, junk or debris on a property draw repeated complaints and the owner does not respond to notice, the city holds a hearing and, if the council declares a nuisance, can have the condition abated at the owner’s expense. The solar farm citation on County Road 65 illustrates that the ordinances apply to commercial and utility-scale properties as well as residential lots.
The meeting was open to the public and held at Foley City Hall. Residents can view agendas and minutes for future meetings through the city’s offices, and the council’s regular schedule continues with work sessions preceding each regular meeting.