Commission soliciting bids for road project

County leaders are moving forward in the bid process for projects that will help repair roads damaged by the April 2011 tornado.

At their meeting on Monday morning, members of the Franklin County Commission voted to advertise for bids on the disaster road project in the East Franklin community.

The project will be funded by $1.23 million in grant money that was part of a special $49.1 million Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to aid continued disaster recovery.

The funds were announced by Gov. Robert Bentley in December.

Franklin County Highway Engineer David Palmer said the county’s grant would pay for repairs to certain roads that were severely damaged during the cleanup process following the April 27, 2011 tornado.

“There was an overwhelming amount of damage to the East Franklin community as a result of the tornado,” Palmer said.

“Because of this, there was a significant amount of debris that had to be cleared, and the heavy trucks and equipment that had to be used during that process damaged several of the roads in that area.”

Palmer said there wasn’t enough funds available in the county highway budget to make the repairs.

“Without this grant, we couldn’t have completed all of this work, so this announcement was huge for us and for the East Franklin community, and we are glad to be moving forward with this project.”

Franklin County Commission chairman Barry Moore said the grant was 100 percent funded and required no matching funds from the county.

In other business, the county commission addressed the following items:

• Hired Brandi Barnett and Patricia Renee Cochran as probate clerks;

• Hired Sheeka Nelson as a tag/title clerk;

• Accepted the resignation of Suzanne Franklin in the revenue commissioner’s office;

• Agreed to advertise for the position of personal property appraiser in the revenue commissioner’s office;

• Hired Andy Fisher and Tony Welborn as solid waste technicians;

• Approved budget revisions for the solid waste and sheriff’s departments;

• Approved the retirement of James Woodall, effective April 1, 2014;

• Approved the request to advertise for the position of deputy sheriff;

• Hired Jonathan Copeland as a temporary deputy;

• Hired William Burcham as a temporary process server;

• Hired Steve Brinley as a corrections officer;

• Approved the agreement of the Hwy. 48 federal aid project;

• Approved the yearly material bid recommendations;

• Accepted the resignation of Marc Massey and approved the request to advertise for the position of a graduate registered engineer intern;

• Approved the Don’t Drop It On Franklin County letter of support;

• Approved mandatory participation in wellness screening for 2014 for county employees;

• Accepted the resignation of Sue Taylor from the water board;

• Agreed to solicit sealed bids for the work to be completed on the courthouse front steps and landing;

• Authorized Judge Barry Moore to work with Roger Bedford, as well as the county administrator and the solid waste manager, to come up with a lease agreement so members of the Alabama Center for Advanced Woodworking Technology, in conjunction with the Alabama Industrial Development Training (AIDT) agency, could lease the old solid waste office building.