ROBERTSDALE, Alabama --- The Robertsdale City Council voted Monday to apply for a Community Development Block Grant which would provide sewer rehabilitation for older areas of the city.

City Engineer Greg Smith said the grant, which provides up to $450,000 from the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, would apply to areas with low to moderate income housing.

The city would provide a 20 percent match for the grant, or no more than $90,000, Smith said.

“We have a couple of critical areas where this would apply,” Smith said. The council voted unanimously to approve the grant application with all council members present at Monday’s meeting.

In order to apply for the grant, the council must also adopt a Citizen Participation Plan and a Four Factor Analysis of Limited English Proficiency Persons, which was also adopted unanimously at Monday’s meeting.

In other business Monday, the council voted to approve a 1.5 percent cost of living raise for all full-time employees.

“I certainly feel like our city employees deserve as much of a raise as we can give them,” said Council member Paul Hollingsworth, who made the motion to grant the raise.

Ann Simpson, the city’s chief financial officer, said revenues and expenditures are both on budget for 2012.

The council passed the measure unanimously. Mayor Charles Murphy abstained from voting on the measure.

The 1.5 percent raise will go into effect in May for all of the city’s 91 full-time employees. Part-time employees will also get a cost of living adjustment for 2012, Murphy said.

“Everyone will be getting something out of this,” he said.

In other business Monday, the council:

• Approved a full-page ad for the Central Baldwin Chamber Magazine at a cost of $1,900.
• Approved an ad for the Gulf Coast Newspapers graduation section at a cost of $450.
• Approved the purchase of approximately 9/10 of an acre on East Silverhill Avenue at a cost of $100,000.
• Accepted the donation of approximately 2.1 acres on East Silverhill Avenue from the Middleton family.
• Approved the transfer of off-premise retail beer and retail table wine license for Bob’s Food Mart (formerly Pope’s Grocery) on Highway 59 in Robertsdale, which is under new ownership.