Alabaster Mayor David Frings lost one personnel battle but won another during Monday night’s Alabaster City Council meeting.

And the city took steps to bring further economic development.

Frings wanted to increase the salaries for police chief, fire chief and park and recreation director.

However, as council president Rick Walters put it, he wanted to look at the finances and take care of all employee salaries at once.

According to Alabaster personnel director Clark Boyd, the measure would have increased the police chief’s salary from about $72,400 to about $88,000, the fire chief’s salary from about $62,500 to about $88,000 and the park and recreation director from about $40,400 to about $51,500.

Voting against the measure were councilmembers Angela Moseley, Jerry Workman, Mike Sherwood and Walters.

In favor, were councilmember Jim McClain, Tommy Ryals and Bob Hicks.

Frings said the council did not like the way the raises were presented and did not vote on the merits of what he was requesting.

However, the mayor did persuade the council on the need for a city planner.

Frings said the city had an opening in the position of planning development coordinator.

Instead of filling that position, he recommended using the balance of those funds …

$20,602 for the rest of the year … to fund the position which he said could cost the city about $61,805 per year.

Frings said the city needed someone developers could work with to get answers ahead of time. Boyd said the raw salary for the position would be about $44,500 per year.

Voting against the city planner position were councilmembers McClain and Walters.

In other business, the council unanimously voted to authorize Frings to sign a real estate contract for the purchase of about 16 acres of property across from the Colonial Promenade Shopping Center on Highway 31 at a cost of about $500,000.

Frings said the property was available and the city would buy it for future economic development.

The owners of the land are Brian and Janice Gordon of Columbiana.

In other matters, the council approved a resolution to oppose a proposed quarry site citing potential geological hazards such as sinkholes, degradation of water quality, a negative impact on the quality of life, noise and air pollution and because of a failure on the part of the company seeking the permit for the quarry to study the impact on surrounding wetlands.

The council further approved a resolution to support a Kroc Community Center in Alabaster that would be located in the Siluria Mill area of town for cultural and recreational activities.

It was reported that the Salvation Army would do the necessary needs study on the proposed facility