The Foley City Council held a special meeting Jan. 27 to appoint the city’s new city administrator and have a swearing-in ceremony.

“We have the results in and it’s the council’s pleasure to announce the new city administrator,” Mayor John Koniar said. “You have before you a resolution for the appointment of Michael Thompson as the new city administrator of Foley, Alabama.”

The council’s vote was unanimously in favor of appointing Thompson, who beat out many other candidates and was the victor of the council’s run- off votes the previous week. Koniar also voted in favor of Thompson’s appointment, even though his vote was not needed to break the tie.

“Congratulations, Michael,” said Koniar. “We are looking forward to working with you…We can’t put Mike to work until he is sworn in so we are going to get rid of any time on his hands. This time tomorrow he will be busying up.”

Koniar also said there were a lot of good candidates the council had to choose from, but Thompson won out because of his previous experience with a governing body in Baldwin County.

“We had a lot of good candidates as we all have discussed, it was a difficult choice. There were a lot of qualified people and we were blessed to have the selection that we had. I think Michael will do a good job for us and we look forward to working with him. He has got a plate that is going to getting full pretty quickly,” Koniar said.

In other council news:

The city council approved the purchase of a fireproof lateral file cabinet. The item was budgeted for $2,500, but the actual cost will only be $2,235.

The council also approved a resolution transferring $10,000 from general government fund to a fund for Art in the Park. The money was already in the budget, but the money just has to be transferred into the proper account. Koniar and councilman Ebert abstained from voting because of their ties to the organization.

Foley’s next work session will be Monday at 3:30 p.m. followed by a council meeting at 5:30 p.m. in Foley’s City Hall.