The Baldwin County Commission had already planned to shake up their government, but now a legislator is taking it even further: trying to add a fifth commissioner to a body that doesn’t want a new member.

State Senator Chris Elliott, R-Daphne – a former county commissioner himself – wants to add a full-time Baldwin County Commission chair as an elected position starting in 2024. He first pitched the fifth commissioner in 2018, shortly after he was first elected to the Alabama State Senate.

He called the fifth commissioner, “a change that has been needed for a very long time. But a majority of the existing commissioners “strongly oppose” the addition of a fifth commissioner, raising the question of exactly how the commission will be configured once the dust settles.

Change already afoot

The commission already planned to make some drastic changes to the way Baldwin County government works. The commission voted to restructure the county government on April 18, in an effort, they said, to make the government more efficient.