Red Bay City Council accepts downtown lighting bid

Downtown Red Bay is seeing a lot of revitalization recently, with more to come.

During the council’s Sept. 7 meeting, councilmembers opened and accepted the only sealed bid proposal received for the rest of the intersection work and downtown pole painting. Red Bay City Councilman Brad Bolton read the proposal, which was dated Aug. 23, and submitted by Robinson and Sons construction company.

The company proposed hand-tooling, cleaning and recoating the 14 intersection poles with black paint for $1,975 each – $27,650 – and hand-tooling and recoating the six decorative poles with black paint for $1,220 each – $7,320 – for a total bid proposal amount of $34,970.

“This is the rest of the intersection and decorative pole painting throughout Main Street,” explained Red Bay Mayor Charlene Fancher.

This is part of the city’s ongoing downtown lighting overhaul project, a three-part plan the council discussed during its July 6 meeting.

“At the last council meeting, we approved to take bids on two different opportunities,” explained Fancher. The other one is to take bids on traffic lights with new control systems. Fancher said she extended that bid opening to allow time to potentially pursue grant funding.

She reported traffic lights do not qualify for the energy grant, though she said she will still pursue the grant, noting its Sept. 9 deadline.

“I’m hoping we can get $40,000 to help with replacing all of the mercury vapor lamps throughout the city,” Fancher said. “That would be 558 light poles. That’s a lot of lights, and that would help our power bill tremendously.”

The next regularly-scheduled Red Bay City Council meeting will be held Sept. 21. A work session will begin at 3 p.m., and the council meeting will begin at 3:30 p.m., at Red Bay City Hall, 203 Fourth Ave. SE.