Spanish Fort’s high school football stadium will keep its natural grass field for now after the city council voted down spending roughly $769,000 in city funds on a new artificial turf surface at Toros Stadium.
The council split 3-2 against the project, with one member abstaining. Mayor Mike McMillan and Councilman Bobby Fortenberry supported the turf purchase, while council members Mary Brabner, Clewis “J.R.” Smith Jr. and William “Bill” Menas Sr. voted against it. Councilman R. Curtis Smith abstained because he is employed by the Baldwin County School System.
McMillan said he believed the vote reflected lingering frustration from the county’s March 31 referendum, in which voters rejected an eight-mill property tax increase that would have funded a $350 million, system-wide school building plan. He said he sensed considerable residual opposition to school-related spending carrying over into the turf decision.
Opponents argued the money would be better spent elsewhere, including on computers, equipment and additional landscaping at the city’s new $7.8 million, 36,000-square-foot community center on U.S. 31. Brabner also noted the city had already spent $5.4 million on Spanish Fort High School athletic facilities over the past dozen years, including a new field house and previous field renovations.
McMillan pointed out that Spanish Fort has historically shouldered more school-related costs than some neighboring communities, contrasting it with the city of Mobile, which does not fund school infrastructure through its municipal budget. He noted the Spanish Fort council had previously approved a $311,168 turf project in 2013 at Ladd-Peebles Stadium, which is used by Mobile County schools.
The turf project had the backing of Spanish Fort football coach and athletic director Ben Blackmon, who told the council during a May public hearing that the field sees more than 280 uses a year across multiple sports, including 68 soccer matches between varsity and junior varsity teams over a four-month stretch this year. He and McMillan also noted that the middle school’s athletic field is in poor condition, and that installing new turf at the high school would have allowed the existing sod there to be reused at the middle school.
With the vote now behind them, McMillan said the city will regroup and look at its parks and recreation holdings as a whole to find other ways to serve the community’s youth sports needs.