Bell elected Phil Campbell mayor

Residents of Phil Campbell now have a new mayor.

Steve Bell will take over in the top role for the city. Bell garnered 168 votes Tuesday in the municipal election, more than double what his next closest competitor received.

“It feels good to win,” Bell said. “It’s humbling to win it without a runoff, really.”

Other members of the race received the following vote totals: Greg Williams had 74, James (Jimmy) Paul Rice got 17 and Garry Reed had 8.

“I was anxious [to see the results,]” he said. “You just never know how it’s going to come out.”

Bell takes over as mayor of a town that has many projects going on, including the ongoing effort to rebuild after the events of last April.

“Over the next coming weeks I’m going to get with the current administration and see where they are,” he said. “I know they have a lot of projects working and a lot of things in the mix. We need to see exactly where they are. What we don’t need to do is drop the ball on something that’s already working, and then build on that. We have a rare opportunity here to basically start over and build on the positive things that are already going on. It’s going to be a challenge, and I won’t be able to do it by myself. It’s going to take pulling everyone in town together just to make it all happen.”

Roy Nagle defeated Dale Moody in the Place 1 council race, Eddie Barton defeated Melissa Mohr in Place 3, Lynn Landers defeated Kent Owen for the Place 4 seat and Jim Cartee won re-election in Place by outpolling John White.