ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — Within the next year, the City of Robertsdale could be reaping the benefits from several improvement projects including a new sidewalk, renovated natural gas lines and better 911 service. At the Robertsdale City Council meeting Monday night, city officials said all these projects are a year or so from completion but they are pleased with the progress being made.

Thanks to a $150,000 “Safe Routes to School” Grant funded by the Federal Highway Administration and Alabama Department of Transportation on July 15, 2010, Greg Smith, City Engineer, said a new sidewalk system could be a reality by the summer of 2011.

“We applied for $500,000 and wanted to use Highway 90 as our project location but were only awarded $150,000 so we have to revamp and figure out where we can work with the funds avaialble. We should know more in the next few weeks about exactly what we are going to do,” Smith said.

Inspection, engineering and administration fees will be paid by the City of Robertsdale and Smith said he should have a better idea of the costs within the next month.

According to the Alabama Department Of Transportation web site, “the purpose of Safe Routes to School Program is to enable and encourage children in grades K-8, including those with disabilities, to walk and bicycle to school; to make walking and bicycling to school safer and more appealing; and to facilitate the planning, development and implementation of projects that will improve highway safety and reduce traffic, fuel consumption and air pollution in the vicinity of schools.”

Also in the works is a $20,000 renovation project for the existing natural gas lines in various locations in the city. At this time, there are three wells but only one across from the Senior Citizen Center is operational, Smith said. The other two will be abandoned.

The renovations are being done to come into compliance with the current codes and Smith said the City hired Marilyn Lewis, a consultant out of Hattiesburg, to come in and complete this process. Because the existing lines are steel, rusting and corrosion could be a problem, so there are plans to put a 200 ft. well in the vicinity of the Public Works building to prevent further complications.

“We are just in the planning phase of this project now but we hope to implement it within the next year,” Smith said.

And lastly, Sgt. Rex Bishop of the Robertsdale Police Department updated the council on improvements in the works to make 911 Emergency service better between the county dispatch and police department computers.

“We are in the process of getting software and connecting to the county’s fiber optic lines so that when a 911 call comes in, we can see all the information about the call on our computer screen instead of having to get it over the phone from the 911 center. This is an ongoing process and we have been working on it for about a year,” Bishop said.

In other council business, a motion was passed to give $1,500 to the Senior Citizen’s Center to cover expenses for their trip to the state Master Games in Trussville, Oct.11-14. This is the fifth year the group has competed and Sarah Duncan, director of the center, thanked the council for their ongoing support of their activities during the year.

Ann Simpson, City of Robertsdale chief financial officer, informed the council the proposed city budget would be presented at the next council meeting and a 3.2 percent increase in health insurance premiums for city employees could be anticipated.

Lastly, the council passed a motion to reschedule the Sept. 6 meeting to Sept. 7 at 6 p.m. because of the Labor Day holiday.