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ALABASTER – Jamie Cole secured the Alabaster City Council Ward 5 seat after he defeated challenger Michael Mehlhoff in an Oct. 6 runoff election.

Cole received 215 votes while Mehlhoff earned 117 votes, according to unofficial election results.

“I am so honored to serve you as your new councilman,” Cole wrote in a Facebook post after the runoff election. “Thank you all! We have a tremendous team assembled to move our city forward. Time to get to work.”

Mehlhoff said he was grateful for the outpouring of support he received from people he did and did not know during his campaign.

“I want to thank everybody for their support they showed,” Mehlhoff said. “We didn’t win, but I congratulate Jamie on a well-deserved victory. He ran a great campaign. I expect that he’s going to do good for Ward 5.”

Cole and Mehlhoff entered the runoff election for Ward 5 after neither candidate was able to gather a majority of the vote during the August municipal election. In the municipal election, Cole received 310 votes (49.76 percent) and Mehlhoff won 228 votes (36.60 percent) to beat out third candidate Ransom Crowe, who garnered 85 votes (13.64 percent).

Cole will serve for the next four years with a mixture of newcomers and incumbents on the council. Scott Brakefield, former Ward 6 council member and president, defeated challenger Robert Goodner in the municipal election to become Alabaster’s new mayor.

Ward 3 incumbent Stacy Rakestraw defeated candidate Derrick Morrissette, and Ward 4 incumbent Greg Farrell defeated candidate April Dortch.

Seth Gandy defeated Larry Sailes to win the Ward 6 seat, which was vacated by Brakefield.

Incumbents Sophie Martin, Rick Ellis and Kerri Pate faced no opposition and retained their seats for Ward 1, Ward 2 and Ward 7, respectively.