Jimmie Stephens is seeking another term representing District 3 on the Jefferson County Commission.

“I’m running,” the commission president told BirminghamWatch. “I want everyone to know that as long as I feel like I can contribute to improving the quality of life of our citizens, I will continue in office. I feel like that through my years of experience and institutional knowledge that I still have much more to give back to the citizens of Jefferson County.”

Stephens, 73, joked that “by the time (of a) next term, I’ll be eligible to run for president of the United States.”

The commissioner representing western Jefferson County said he is looking forward to continuing to serve the citizens — and doing it with his fellow commissioners on the dais.

“We have a good team,” said Stephens, who is president of the commission. “If it’s the will of the citizens, I would like to have that entire team back because we know how each other operates and works. We have set aside our partisanship and are working on for the good of the people of Jefferson County. I’ll endorse all of our existing commissioners.”

The commission races will be on the 2026 ballot, along with the governor’s office, legislative, congressional and other local races.

As he said at last week’s commission meeting, Stephens is to undergo surgery on Thursday to clear away the cancer he disclosed recently.

“Once they finish that surgery, Friday morning I will wake up and begin my healing process,” he said. “It’s not something that I’m looking forward to but I’m eagerly anticipating a successful outcome.

“I asked the surgeon … and she said, normally, the recuperation process before you can do anything that would be very strenuous would be a month,” Stephens said. “I’m going to cut that in half. I’ve had one of those surgeries previously, which where they just checked to see what it was. Now they will go in and redo that surgery and another one that’s adjacent to it to do a complete clearance.”

He is the first candidate to announce he’s running for the commission.