Joshua O Brown

Mayor, Bay Minette

While other Baldwin County communities grapple with growth, Joshua Brown has watched Bay Minette shrink. 

“Over the last decade, Bay Minette has had zero economic growth,” Brown said. “That has to change.”

The killing of OJ French at the hands of Bay Minette police during a traffic stop in 2022 brought the syndrome of community decline into full focus for Joshua O Brown, an IT consultant who grew up in Bay Minette.

 “I saw the pain of the community, the lack of leadership. That was the final Yes,” Brown said. 

At 32, Brown is saying "yes" to becoming the city's youngest and first African-American Mayor. He hopes to break the cycle of decay he sees playing out in Bay Minette.

When jobs leave a town, the money leaves. The city tax base dissolves. There are fewer safe places for people to congregate and crime rates surge. With an economy based on law enforcement, the city coffers come to count on crime and the cash it generates for survival. Aggressive policing - like that which many say killed OJ French - is the upshot.

“People go into a poverty mindset,” he said. “We've become known as a jailhouse town.”

Brown sees the opening of the Novelis recycling facility as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to turn Bay Minette's economy from one of decline into one of productivity. He wants the city to promote training programs so local workers can fill the 1,000 new jobs the company promises when it opens within the year.

Browns, who holds a Master's Degree in Business Management, calls his approach to community leadership The Smart Agenda. Goals for governance should be:

Smart

Measurable

Attainable

Reasonable

Timely

It's the formula Brown hopes to use to spread the profits of economic growth across Bay Minette's population rather than concentrating in established pockets of wealth and power.

“There are forces that would like to keep new money in certain people's pockets,” Brown said.

Brown grew up the baby of four in a supportive and loving family he'd like to role model for Bay Minette youth. He will push for rigorous reinvestment in parks and recreation programs to supply supportive environments for families and young people.

“I want to take the village that was around me, take that same synergy and transfer it to the future generations of Bay Minette,” Brown said.

Tyrone Thompson

City Council, District 4

Bay Minette

It's more about the questions than the answers.

That’s how Tyrone Thompson sees his bid for Bay Minette City Council, District 4.

“I’m meeting with community groups and doing a lot more listening than talking,” he said. “My job will be to take what I hear from people in the district and to go to work to make it happen.”

About three years ago, Thompson, 56, retired as a Deputy with the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department, where he worked for 25 years. With extra time on his hands and his son grown, the little seed of public service that propelled Thompson through two decades in the Navy, Navy Reserve and a law enforcement career began to sprout and grow.

“Public service was always my thing,” he said. “But when people asked me if I’d ever think of running for office, I always said ‘Me? Run? No Way!’ But the seed was planted.”

The seed took root when Thompson knocked on Bay Minette doors for Barack Obama and he found the fulfillment “that comes with being around like-minded people working for something you all believe in.” Thompson also canvassed for Kamala Harris last fall.

Thompson’s District 4 listening sessions are bringing a few priorities into focus.

• Bay Minette must make the most of opportunities coming its way with the opening of a new Novelis plant, an aluminum recycling facility projected to employ about 1,000 people with jobs paying an average of $65,000. Novelis is investing over $2.5 billion in the 3,000-acre South Alabama Mega Site expected to be operating within about a year. Bay Minette city leaders should work to incentivize hiring local workers, to build affordable housing and to maintain affordable housing prices.

• Bay Minette is something of a “restaurant desert.” Thompson is pleased to see the opening of a “Big Mike’s Steakhouse” and would like to see measures to attract a wider variety of dining options beyond fast food.

• Bay Minette should use some of the tax proceeds from Novelis to improve recreational facilities and options for families and youth. Thompson regretted seeing the local bowling alley close its doors. 

             “Once baseball and football

season is over, there’s not

much kids and families can do together,” Thompson said. “That’s something we should work on.”

Terri Osborne

Daphne City Council, District 3

For Daphne District 3 City Council candidate Terri Osborne, it’s all about the water.

“Every aspect of our lives is related to our water,” she said. “From our drinking water to our bays and streams where we swim, boat and play - the quality of our water is the quality of our lives.”

As rapid growth races through Daphne, Osborne is the kind of specialist-steward the Sea Cliff, Lake Forest and Park City neighborhoods of Daphne want to have on their team.

A water expert with the Geological Survey of Alabama, Osborne knows the lay of Baldwin County land like she knows the back of her hand. She knows how the sediments and aquifers dip from north to southwest. She knows how each region is a unique underground water environment that may or may not offer resources for drinking water, sewers and drainage.

“I’ve been here almost half my life,” Osborne said. “All the growth I've seen concerns me. It seems nobody thought ahead about what all this development would look like 30 years down the road.”

Osborne holds a BS and MS in Geology from The University of Alabama and holds Professional Geologist license No. 31 in Alabama. Born in Florence, she moved to Daphne about three decades ago for an environmental job with Volkert. A few years later she went to work for an environmental consulting firm, where she spent her days working on the types of problems developers need to need to think about when laying out the neighborhoods for the new families making their home in Daphne - things like surface and groundwater contamination, protection of public water supply aquifers, and wastewater treatment capacity. 

Making sure there is safe walking access to enjoy the shoreline at Daphne’s new Bayfront Park and Amphitheater is another aqua issue Osborne thinks about. She wants to make sure area walkways line up so pedestrians have safe passage to the new attraction.

“We need to make sure people can get there safely on foot,” she said.

Osborne also is a musician who enjoys playing guitar and bass, singing and writing songs. She loves animated movies, Star Trek and The Beatles. She’s the kind of tuned-in community leader the city needs to guide the flow of Daphne into the future.

Steve McArthur

Daphne City Council, District 5

When it comes to Daphne’s growing pains, District 5 City Council candidate Steve McArthur walks both sides of the street.

“The relaxed semi-rural environment that attracted people to the area is under threat from encroaching development," he said. “Most residents would like to stop growth to maintain status quo, but that isn’t realistic.”

McArthur, a mechanical engineer, knows first-hand the challenges of building livable communities that respect the earth they occupy. When he developed a 29-acre neighborhood in South Carolina, he left more trees standing than the county code called for. He built a few less houses to preserve more green spaces. He worked with the Corps of Engineers to build a road that crossed wetlands without destroying them.

 “Road routing and permitting were time consuming and expensive but it was our personal commitment to minimize impact to woodlands,” he said.

Growing up in the Gulf area, McArthur loved its beaches and laid-back ways. As a kid, he spent time outside with his parents, learning to love nature through hiking, biking, snow skiing and canoeing. His love for nature matured into environmentalism through groups like Sierra Club and Mobile Baykeeper.

McArthur sees his industrial background running parallel with the duties of local government. There is only so much money to divide fairly among stakeholders. The steps from initial design concepts, engineering, permitting, department reviews, and construction are the same ones city leaders take in planning the communities of our future.

“Part of my industrial experience is also the skill to keep an open mind and listen to all of the stakeholders. Not everyone can obtain all of their desires, but being transparent and honest at least allows people to understand their voices are being heard and taken into consideration,” he said.

New homes and apartments add to the city tax base at the same time they bring additional load on municipal infrastructure like roads, utilities, increased traffic and school enrollment.

 “These are real concerns for residents,” McArthur said. “On the other hand, land owners and developers are operating in a free market system and should not automatically be prohibited from making a profit because neighbors oppose growth.”

McArthur supports the impact fee program the Daphne City Council is now working on. It requires the developer to pay for each structure when applying for a building permit. The impact fee would offset some - but not all - costs for infrastructure upgrades for utilities, he said.

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