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Two incumbents on the Mountain Brook City Council, including President Billy Pritchard, defeated their challengers Tuesday in races focused on the education culture wars that have gripped the affluent Birmingham suburb for nearly two years.

Pritchard defeated challenger Kent Osband, who was running on a platform of keeping the culture war from consuming Mountain Brook, 71 percent to 29 percent, according to unofficial results tallied by the city.

Osband said he was inspired to run for the Place 2 seat when Mountain Brook Schools cut ties with the Anti-Defamation Leagues anti-bias curriculum over what a group of parents claimed was ties to critical race theory.

Osband said the ADLs program, which came to Mountain Brook amid an anti-Semitic incident at Mountain Brook High School in 2020, was highly partisan ... under the guise of hating hate.

As I abhor both anti-Semitism and mind-numbing indoctrination, wherever it comes from, I investigated both sides and chose to publicly defend [Mountain Brook Schools] in an opinion piece in Southern Jewish Life. However, we need to do much more to keep the culture war from consuming Mountain Brook, Osband told Village Life. On the one hand, lets push harder for higher standards at MBS in both academics and behavior and insist that students meet them. On the other hand, lets extend our hard-won culture of tolerance and respect for religious differences to include political differences, too.

Pritchard, whose council duties included being a liaison to the Mountain Brooks Board of Education, did not list the issue as a top priority

Councilor Lloyd Shelton withstood a challenge from Tate Davis in Place 3, 67 percent to 33 percent.

Shelton, the chairman of the councils Finance Committee, viewed taxes and infrastructure as the major issues facing Mountain Brook.

Davis, who is in the construction and real estate industry, it is the utmost importance that the most qualified and skilled individuals sit on our Board of Education.

The council appoints members to the board.

In an open seat to replace the retiring Alice Womack in Place 1, Graham Smith, a former legislative director to Sen. Richard Shelby and member of the Mountain Brook Planning Commission, defeated sales manager Christopher Powanda, 73 percent to 27 percent.

In that race, Powanda campaigned on keeping all political groups and politically motivated curriculum out of our schools while Smith focused on infrastructure improvements and city services.

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Mountain Brook council incumbents win in election focused on education culture war - AL.com