Spanish Fort officials formally opened the search for a new District 2 council member this week after Councilman Dennis Dismuke stepped down from the seat last month. Mayor Mike McMillan declared the vacancy during a recent council meeting, setting off a short window for residents to apply.
Anyone interested in filling the seat has until Wednesday, Nov. 11, to submit a letter of intent to Spanish Fort City Hall on Spanish Fort Boulevard. To qualify, applicants must be registered voters who live within District 2, an area covering the north side of U.S. 31 roughly between Blakeley Way and Buzbee Road, along with pockets just west of Jimmy Faulkner Drive. McMillan said the council plans to interview candidates and make a selection by the end of the month.
In other business, the council approved its share of funding for a regional Traffic Signal System Technology Enhancements Study aimed at better synchronizing traffic lights across several major Eastern Shore corridors, including U.S. 31 in Spanish Fort, U.S. 98 in Daphne and Fairhope, U.S. 90 in Daphne, Alabama 59 in Loxley, Alabama 181 in Daphne and Baldwin County Road 64 in Daphne. Spanish Fort agreed to contribute just over $1,000 toward the roughly $36,000 study, with the bulk of the cost covered by the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization and smaller shares from the Baldwin County Commission, Daphne and Fairhope.
The signal study comes as other Baldwin County communities experiment with smarter traffic technology. Gulf Shores has already begun installing adaptive signals along Alabama 59 that adjust automatically based on real-time traffic volume, while Orange Beach and Foley are weighing similar upgrades but have been slowed by the cost of implementation.
Traffic wasn’t the only infrastructure concern on the council’s agenda. Persistent drainage and stormwater runoff issues also drew action, with the council committing $130,000 toward a joint project with the Baldwin County Board of Education to address flooding at Spanish Fort Elementary’s baseball park. The school system agreed to match the contribution with its own $130,000, bringing the total project budget to $260,000.
Mayor McMillan described the ballpark project as the final phase of a multi-year effort to control runoff near the headwaters of Joe’s Branch, a waterway that has been identified as a major contributor of sediment flowing into Daphne’s D’Olive Creek watershed. He pointed to earlier work, including new detention ponds built near School Road and U.S. 31 and a Joe’s Branch restoration project completed just south of U.S. 31 roughly two years earlier, as previous steps in the same broader drainage strategy.
City leaders framed both the traffic and drainage initiatives as part of an ongoing push to keep pace with growth along the Eastern Shore, where rising traffic volumes and stormwater demands have increasingly strained local infrastructure.