By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor 

Alabaster’s incoming City Council members are set to take office in early November after the city’s current council canvassed the Aug. 28 election results during a Sept. 4 meeting.

During the noon meeting, which was held at the Alabaster City Hall Annex building, the current City Council members canvassed the election results and presented a certificate of election to Ward 3 Councilwoman Stacy Rakestraw.

Rakestraw, who was appointed the council a few months ago to replace former Councilman Adam Moseley, defeated candidate Les Zemnes by a margin of 530 votes to 240 votes to continue her tenure as the Ward 3 councilwoman for the next four years.

During the meeting, the council also set a runoff election for Oct. 9 for the Alabaster mayoral race. The runoff will be between incumbent Mayor David Frings and challenger Marty Handlon after neither candidate secured a majority of the mayoral votes during the regular election.

Frings collected 44.45 percent of the vote and Handlon gathered 47.29 percent of the vote. Frings and Handlon beat out fellow candidate Kevin Brand, who gathered 8.26 percent of the vote.

The runoff election will be held from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. on Oct. 9 at the Shelby County Instructional Services Center near the intersection of U.S. 31 and Alabama 119.

The Ward 3 council seat and the mayor’s seat were the only two contested races in Alabaster during the Aug. 28 election.

During its Aug. 6 meeting, the City Council declared Ward 1 incumbent Sophie Martin, Ward 2 incumbent Bob Hicks, Ward 4 incumbent Rick Walters, Ward 5 council newcomer Russell Bedsole, Ward 6 incumbent Scott Brakefield and Ward 7 incumbent Tommy Ryals as the winners of their respective races after nobody qualified to run against them.

Candidate George Oldroyd originally qualified to run against Hicks for the Ward 2 seat, but he later withdrew from the race, said Alabaster City Clerk Marsha Massey.

Bedsole will replace current Ward 5 Councilman and Council President Jim McClain, who did not seek re-election.

Alabaster’s new mayor and City Council will be sworn in on Nov. 5.