News
In the News: Ball park safe room project approved
Posted on June 21, 2017
Originally published in the Franklin Free Press.
The Russellville City Council met on Monday night to discuss 11 items on the approved agenda. One item on the agenda, which regarded a contract with an engineering firm, was omitted in the work session.
Russellville mayor David Grissom was not present, so District 3 councilman Gary Cummings led the meeting.
The first major item approved by the council was an agreement with the Northwest Alabama Council of Local Governments (NACOLG) for project management of the newly approved community safe room at the John Blackwell Sports Complex next to Sloss Lake.
The council’s approval of the agreement with NACOLG marks the end of a long two-and-a-half-year journey to get the project off the ground. The John Blackwell Sports Complex was built with the approval of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Because of that, Russellville officials and NACOLG had to work with federal agencies to get the construction of the safe room approved.
“Typically it doesn’t take this long to get approval to do something like this,” said Tiffany Boyd, the NACOLG contact for the project. “Because the ball park was done by the Land and Water Conservation Fund grant, we had to work with ADECA and the National Park Service to get clearance.”
For all the work it took to finally get the project moving forward, Russellville Fire Department Chief Joe Mansell said it’s worth it.
“I think the safe room will be a great asset for the people of that community and for all the people that use the ball fields,” he said. “This was a long process and building those safe rooms aren’t cheap, but if it saves just one life, you can’t put a price on that.”
District 5 councilman Jamie Harris was grateful for the persistence of the individuals who helped get the safe room project on track.
“I just want to thank Joe (Mansell) and his guys at the fire department, NACOLG and everyone involved for sticking with it for as long as they did and making sure it got done,” Harris said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant used to build the safe room, which has already been extended multiple times, will have to be extended once more before the safe room is completed.
“We’ll have to extend the grant one more time to get the project done,” Boyd said. “That’ll add another year to the project. It shouldn’t take that long to get the safe room built, but that’s the time that will be added.”
Moving on, the council also agreed to award a drainage project at Russellville Municipal Airport to Keenum Construction. Matt Mims, the project manager, said Keenum Construction submitted the lone bid and therefore negotiations were possible.
According to Mims, Keenum Construction was talked down from their original bid of around $160K to $141,385. The agreed upon figure was higher than what they hoped, but Mims said it was the best deal given the lack of bids for the project.
Other actions taken by the council:
– Approved contract with Joe Diffie and Rider for the 4th of July Celebration Event
– Approved FAA Fiscal Year 2017 Grant Application
– Approved revised volunteer fire roster
– Allowed Chris Ozbirn of the Franklin County Archives to give an update from the Bicentennial Committee