Bay Minette Council Takes Up Second GOMESA Grant Request, This Time for the Kids Park
At its April 6 meeting, the City Council took up Resolution 0426-01, authorizing the city to apply to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for federal-origin GOMESA funds toward improvements at the Kids Park. The city received a $1 million GOMESA grant for its Nature Park Master Plan in September 2025.
When the Bay Minette City Council met on Monday, April 6, 2026, the new-business section of its agenda included a resolution authorizing the city to apply for a second state-administered grant for park improvements — this time for the Kids Park.
Excerpt from the April 6, 2026 Council Meeting agenda — page 2.
Per the agenda, Resolution 0426-01 was titled "A Resolution to Authorize Submission of a Grant Application to ADCNR Requesting GOMESA Funds for Improvements to the Kids Park."
About the Kids Park
The Bay Minette Kids Park is at 303 McMillan Avenue. It opened in 2000 and was built largely by volunteer labor. The park includes a playground designed for younger children, a tennis court, a rentable pavilion, and a seasonal splash pad — all under the city's Recreation Department.
The agenda title indicates only that the resolution authorizes submission of the grant application, not the eventual award. The dollar amount being requested, the scope of the proposed improvements, and the timeline for any work would appear in the underlying grant packet rather than the resolution title itself.
What GOMESA is
GOMESA — the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 (Public Law 109-432) — directs 37.5 percent of qualified federal Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas royalties back to the four Gulf-producing states (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) and their coastal political subdivisions. Another 12.5 percent goes to the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund.
In Alabama, the eligible coastal political subdivisions are Baldwin and Mobile counties as a whole — not just the cities physically on the water. Cities anywhere inside those two counties can receive GOMESA-funded grants, which is why inland recipients are common alongside coastal ones. The state's share is administered by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) on behalf of the Governor's Office. Baldwin and Mobile counties also receive separate direct disbursements from the federal government as eligible CPS's, parallel to the ADCNR grant program.
Bay Minette's prior GOMESA grant
This is not Bay Minette's first GOMESA application. In September 2025, Governor Kay Ivey announced $1 million for Bay Minette's Nature Park Master Plan and Engineering Design as part of a statewide GOMESA round totaling roughly $45 million across 23 projects.
Other Baldwin County and coastal-Alabama recipients in that same round included:
- Daphne — Recreation Center Renovation, $4 million
- Gulf Shores — Waterway Village Pedestrian Park, $3.6 million
- Foley — Nature Parks Expansion, $1.5 million
- Silverhill — Oscar Johnson Park Improvements, $1.5 million
- Loxley — Youth Soccer Complex, $1 million
- Magnolia Springs — Restoration Project, $878,346
- Lillian — Sustainable Stormwater and Parking Lot Improvements, $396,340
- Bay Minette — Nature Park Master Plan and Engineering Design, $1 million
The April 6 resolution is the city asking the state for a second grant in a separate cycle, this one for the Kids Park rather than the Nature Park.
The April 6 agenda also included a memorandum-of-understanding with North Baldwin Utilities for shared equipment and personnel, a Management Control Agreement between the Baldwin County Commission and the city's Police Department, and the appointment of a Municipal Non-Elected Public Official for the city's Police Court. The full April 6 agenda is on the city's Agendas and Minutes index.