Republic Services to take over Waste Pro contracts
At Monday’s Shelby Commission meeting, Chief Development Officer Chad Scroggins shared information with the commission that Waste Pro and Republic Services are in negotiations for the sale of Waste Pro’s Birmingham assets to Republic Services with a proposed sale date of Nov. 1.
In a letter to the commission, Scott Corley, Division Vice President of Waste P,o. thanked the commission and citizens of Shelby County for allowing them to provide residential waste and recycling services for the past six years.
“I am very confident that Republic will continue the great relationship Waste Pro has enjoyed with the county and they will provide a high level of service to Shelby County and its citizens,” Corley said.
The commission recently renewed the county’s three-year contract with Waste Pro, and those rates and terms will transfer to Republic Services.
County Manager Alex Dudchock said he knew of no reason why the county wouldn’t do this.
“I have no negative concerns about Republic,” Dudchock said. “I only see positives.”
Scroggins added that there are 21,000 customers in the current contract alone, and if there are issues and they do get six or seven calls per week, that’s still a relatively low number.
Dudchock gave an update on the 4H Center on Lay Lake and Capital Project, saying he is excited about it.
“This is a significant site for us,” he said. “Youth activities are important as is the hotel and lodge there. The capacity for a conference space with an additional wing facing Lay Lake.”
The 4H center is around $7 million into raising their projected $9 million.
In the roads and bridges report, County Engineer Randy Cole discussed the addition of lanes from SR-261 from North of Braswell St. to SR-3 (US 31). The federal aid project consists of Valleydale Rd. between I-65 and US 31 where it crosses over to AL 261 all the way down to Bearden Road.
“That area is in need of congestion relief,” Cole said. “The project will take ALDOT, Shelby County, Hoover and Pelham to jointly participate.”
Funding provisions shall be limited to $158,000 for Hoover, Pelham and Shelby County totaling $474,000. Any overruns in design costs will be borne by STPAA Federal Funds and State Public Road and Bridge Funds.
A bid has been awarded for the CR-52 bridge replacement over the Cahaba River to Wright Brothers Construction for $6.6 million. Paperwork is being signed and construction should begin soon.
For work at CR-52 and CR-93, the low bidder was Chilton Contractors at $983,000. This will be funded through CMAQ funds
Cole also shared that with the new gas tax recently enacted and being collected, there is a new pot of money known as ATRIP2. Funds from it must be used on state or federal routes. 121 applications were received requesting $148 million. 28 projects were granted, and one of those was in Shelby County. It was one of the four largest grants given and it will be used to replace the bridge on CR-25 outside Columbiana.
“We were happy to get this large grant on this,” said Cole. “That’s good news. They took the four largest ones and reduced the grant amount, so we will have to put money with it and be creative to stretch it as far as we can. This was the only bridge project they gave out in this cycle.”
The next Shelby Commission meeting will be Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. at the County Services Building in Columbiana.