ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — The City of Robertsdale passed a motion to start the bidding process for asphalt material for the 2011 Street Paving Project at their Monday night council meeting.

City Engineer Greg Smith said the bids will be advertised for three weeks and then they will be opened on Thursday, March 3 at 2 p.m. at City Hall.

“The county will provide the labor at $18 a tonnage with about 4,500 needed for the project. This equals out to about $81,000 and total project costing around $300,000 which is already budgeted for,” Smith said.

The project should get underway in the late Spring or early Summer and the bid prices are good for 90 days, Smith said.

The project will cover Palmer Street, Krchak Lane, Circle Drive, part of Fairground Road, College Avenue, East Silverhill Avenue and part of Pearson Street, Smith said.

All material will have to meet Alabama Department of Transportation standards and the company will need to be in close proximity to the project sites to maintain the proper temperature of the asphalt, Smith said.

Also, Smith said because of the large amount of rain we received on Friday, the sewer pump station overflowed one of the pumps and 125,000 gallons of water was spilled out into the creek and two million gallons flowed through the system where as it is only designed to handle 750,000 gallons a day. The water was flowing for about five hours before it was caught.

“The pumps are working great and doing their job but it was just too much with all the rain and we are going to have to evaluate it and figure out how to fix the problem so this doesn’t become a bigger problem. The water was flowing so fast it blew a manhole cover open and fortunately it was clear water flowing out. But we need to come up with a solution for this,” Smith said.

In other council business, a motion was passed to purchase a quarter page ad for $275 in “Baldwin County Marketplace”, a publication from Gulf Coast Newspapers. The special section will come out on February 23rd and be inserted in all six newspapers.

The council also passed a motion to appoint Rose Metzger to a vacant position on the Zoning Board of Adjustments.

Russell Johnson addressed the council and had a word of praise for the Police Department as his house was recently burglarized. “I just want to say how proud I am of this department and the great job they did responding to our break-in. They were determined to get the guy and recover my property and they did. I think they are more professional than a lot of big city departments and you should be proud of them.”

Mayor Charles M Murphy also informed the council that Ethics forms were due back on April 18th and could be completed online.