Former Birmingham Mayor William Bell will enter this year’s mayoral race, challenging incumbent Mayor Randall Woodfin, who unseated him in 2017, according to news outlets.
Paperwork filed with Jefferson County’s probate court Monday shows that Bell has formed a principal campaign committee — of which he is the sole member — for a 2021 mayoral run.
Bell, 71, served as Birmingham mayor from 2010 to 2017; before that, he’d served as a city councilor and Jefferson County commissioner.
He was defeated by challenger Randall Woodfin in 2017; Woodfin, who criticized Bell for neglecting the city’s neighborhoods, received roughly 59% of the vote to Bell’s 41%.
Bell has not made an official announcement and did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
He joins an increasingly crowded field. Woodfin officially kicked off his re-election bid Saturday, while Jefferson County Commissioner Lashunda Scales announced her campaign on Jan. 18. Birmingham businessman Chris Woods, who placed third behind Woodfin and Bell in 2017, is also running again. Cerissa Brown, a mental health advocate and entrepreneur, will announce her candidacy next week.
Birmingham’s municipal election will take place on Aug. 24, with a runoff scheduled for Oct. 5.
Editor’s note: This post was updated Tuesday evening to reflect recent media reports indicating Bell’s plans to run.
Nine Birmingham nonprofits will receive funding from the city’s Building Opportunities for Lasting Development grant initiative this year, despite an overall reduction in funding for the program.
Within about a year, the state has lost almost 10,000 Alabamians to COVID-19.
Currently, there are six people in the race for mayor of Birmingham. The filing deadline is July 10.
The Jefferson County Commission is conducting its duties in accordance with state law, says a report from the Alabama Examiners of Public Accounts.
An epidemiologist at UAB Medicine thinks that Alabama may be headed toward a long-sought goal in the COVID pandemic and may reach that goal sooner than many had expected.
The city of Birmingham is sending two sets of lobbyists to Montgomery — one from Mayor Randall Woodfin’s office and one from the City Council.
