ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — The City of Robertsdale passed a motion at their Monday morning council meeting to retain the services of Goodwyn, Mills, & Cawood Inc., a Montgomery Engineering firm, to oversee the construction of the “Safe Route to School Sidewalk Program.”

The City was awarded a $150,000 “Safe Routes to School” Grant funded by the Federal Highway Administration and Alabama Department of Transportation on July 15.

Inspection, engineering and administration fees in the amount of $30,000 will be paid by the City of Robertsdale, City Engineer Greg Smith said, and broken down, $13,800 will be for Engineering Design, $8,700 will be for Construction Inspection and $7,500 will be for Project Administration.

This money has already been budgeted and Smith said they will be looking at different options as to where to put the sidewalk in the next few weeks and go from there.

“We applied for $500,000 and wanted to use Hwy. 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 available,” Smith said.

The agreement between the City and Goodwyn covers basic services like the design phase, the bid phase, the construction phase and the post-construction phase. It also includes additional services like preparation of applications and documents, drawings, models of construction and physical testing of materials and equipment.

“Once a location is decided on, ALDOT (Alabama Department of Transportation) is supposed to let us begin working on Jan. 1, 2011 and we have 12 months to start construction,” Smith said.

According to the ALDOT 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.”

In other business, a motion was passed to grant an ABC Retail Beer License Request to GooRoos Grill Inc., located at 22175 Highway 59 in Robertsdale and discussion about the Baldwin County Watershed Commission was tabled for a second time.

Mayor Charles Murphy said they wanted to wait until after the Nov. 15 referendum vote to see what the public consensus was and then make a decision based on that.

A motion was also passed to reduce the rental fee at the PZK Civic Center for Family Promise of Baldwin County for the “Chocolate Affair” fundraiser on Dec. 10.

Candi Lane, a volunteer with Family Promise, said they had the event in Foley last year but are trying to raise awareness for their organization all over the county and wanted to bring the event to Robertsdale this year.

Helping homeless families get back on their feet by providing food and shelter for a week at a time in area churches, Lane said they are trying to build stronger communities by giving families the skills to get back on track.

Council member Cooper abstained from the vote because she and her church are one of the host churches for Family Promise but has much praise for the work they are doing.

“This program works well and we have found if you give them a hand up they will do good and get out of the situation they ae in,” Cooper said.

Lastly, Robertsdale High School will have their Homecoming Parade on Thursday, Sept. 23 beginning at 3:45 p.m.

According to Police Chief Brad Kendrick, the parade will start behind RHS and proceed to East Silverhill Avenue, then to Pine Street and Hammond Street and onto Highway 59 and end at Honeybee Park. Traffic will be slowed down going northbound but not stopped at all going southbound on Highway 59.