Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By TYLER RALEY | Staff Writer

HOOVER – With the election season being completed in the city of Hoover, citizens now know that a familiar face will be making his way back to the city’s governing body for the next four years.

In the runoff election for Place 2 on the Hoover City Council, Gene Smith narrowly defeated Kenneth Cox Jr. after the 8,646 total votes were tabulated from the 17 precincts within the city.

Smith earned 4,644 of the day’s votes, securing 53.71 percent of the vote, while Cox earned 4,002, or the other 46.29 percent of the vote from the citizens.

The results of the runoff were flipped in the general election, which saw Cox earned 33.30 percent of the vote with 5,411 and Smith earn 30 percent at 4,876 in a four-man race for the position.

“I feel wonderful,” Smith said. “It’s been a long campaign season. I did not go negative against anybody, I did not want to. I learned a long time ago that that’s not the kind of stuff that Hoover likes. I want to talk about the things that I bring to the table and that’s what I want to do… I hope that my experience in dealing with city finances and things like that will allow us to be able to accomplish more, better, faster.”

The upcoming term for the Hoover City Council will be the fifth official term for Smith. He served on the Hoover City Council in Place 2 from 2004-2020 and was the Hoover City Council president in his final four years. He also served on the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission from 1996-2001.

Professionally, Smith worked with the Hoover Fire Department, where he retired in 1993 and now currently owns a family business. He is a graduate of W.A. Berry High School in 1975 and hold collegiate degrees from Jefferson State Community College and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

With his background in helping out with the city’s finances, Smith is eager to get back and help Hoover mayor-elect Nick Derzis and set the city up the right way for the future.

“I want to be able to see what the mayor’s new economic plan is,” Smith said. “We don’t know what that is at this time. I’m sure that now that it appears that I’m going back, maybe I’ll become a part of this discussion and then we’ll be able to look and see how he plans on looking at it and obviously I’ll have my opinion and we’ll talk it out.”

Smith will serve on a Hoover City Council that will be work with the new mayor in Derzis, with the other councilors being Robin Schultz, Ashley Lovell, Khristi Driver, Derrick Murphy, Casey Middlebrooks and Steve McClinton.

As he gets ready to step back into office in November, Smith appreciates all those that voted him in and that have given him another chance to make an impact on the city of Hoover.

“I really, really appreciate being given the opportunity,” Smith said. “I know there were some people that were concerned about my age. I am bringing experience… I think we all have our specialty and we’re going to be able to find where everybody’s specialties lay. I know what they are with those that I’ve worked for… I just want to be a team player.”