City approves bid for sidewalk grant

By John Underwood / john@gulfcoastmedia.com
Posted 12/20/18

ROBERTSDALE, Alabama — The Robertsdale City Council awarded bids for a nearly half-million dollar sidewalk improvement project at its last regular meeting of the year meeting Monday, Dec. …

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City approves bid for sidewalk grant

Posted

ROBERTSDALE, Alabama — The Robertsdale City Council awarded bids for a nearly half-million dollar sidewalk improvement project at its last regular meeting of the year meeting Monday, Dec. 17.

The council unanimously approved the low bid of $446,656.50 from Harwell and Company LLC upon the recommendation of Civil Southeast, who was approved as the engineer for the project at the council’s Nov. 19 meeting.

Bids on the project were opened Nov. 29 and there were a total of eight bids for the project.

“There was some confusion as to the legality of Harwell’s bid,” said Alan Killen, project manager with Civil Southeast. “But all of that has been cleared up and we are recommending that Harwell’s bid be approved.”

Plans for the project call for sidewalk improvements along Krchak Lane from Alabama 59 to Palmer Street, then along Palmer Street, crossing Alabama 104 to the Baldwin County Health Department office at the Central Annex.

The project will be funded by a TAP grant through the Alabama Department of Transportation, plus a 20 percent match by the city. The city has used various TAP grants over the last several years to connect schools in the Robertsdale area, including projects along College Street (County Road 71), Wilters Street, U.S. 90, Silverhill Avenue (Alabama 104) and Fairground Road, among others.

Following council approval, the bid will have to be approved by ALDOT before the project can begin.

Killen said he hopes to be able to start the project sometime in mid-January or early February.

In other business Dec. 17, city engineer Greg Smith informed the council that letters will be going out in January utility bills informing customers that testing, which was supposed to be done in August, was not done until October.

“Ultimately it is our responsibility to make sure it gets done,” Smith said, “and we now have automatic notifications in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Smith said the company the city used for the testing was bought out by another company and the person who normally does the testing left a week before the testing was to be done. All the tests came back clear, Smith said.

“We’ve never had a problem with it,” he said. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management requires that the letter be sent informing residents that the test was not done when it was supposed to, he added.

The council also rescheduled its Jan. 21 meeting to Jan. 22 because of the Dr. Martin Luther King Day of Remembrance holiday. The meeting will begin at 8 a.m.