SELMA — Work has begun on the Water Avenue streetscape and utility relocation project.

Motorists going north on Broad Street over the Edmund Pettus Bridge will notice the east side of Water Avenue is closed to traffic.

Mayor George Evans said Alabama Power Co. began setting poles, trenching, relocating lines and removing wooden poles.

“The streets will be closed for two or three days,” Evans said.

AT&T and the Selma Water Board will follow in the next week or two.

Next week, Frazier-Ousley Construction will begin demolition of the sidewalk on the north side of Water Avenue in the first block next week.

Evans updated the Selma City Council on the project’s progress during a work session held at City Hall Monday evening.

The project will not be ready for Market Day, but companies will preserve the utilities and space necessary for Market Day to be held without any interruption, Evans said.

“Following Market Day, all streetscape work will resume until completed,” Evans said.

The contractor has until early March to complete the project, but it’s likely to end sooner, Evans said.

Other topics covered in the work session:

• City council members discussed constituents’ complaints about slow garbage pick-up. Council President Cecil Williamson said his garbage was not picked up Monday, which is the usual day.

B.J. Smothers, assistant to the mayor, said the truck was out of commission Monday and did not make the route.

Williamson said he wants to revisit outsourcing garbage pickup.

“I’m interested in keeping it,” Evans said, adding the garbage fee would have to go up. “We can’t continue to do it at $12.”

Evans said he plans public hearings and meetings to explain the process of new contracts for every person with garbage collection in the city.

“We have plenty of time to get implementation in place,” Evans said.

• The city council received a copy of a preliminary budget totaling $16.9 million.

“We’re about $400,000 short in revenue,” Evans said.

Department heads in the city requested about $18 million, but Evans and city treasurer Cynthia Mitchell reduced the requests.

“I would like to get it to $16.5 million,” Evans said. “We’ve cut just about all we can cut.”

Evans said he had talked to some department heads about a salary cut across the city, but “that’s way down the line … that’s plan B. If the economy doesn’t bounce back we’ll have to go to plan B. I just wanted to make people aware of that.”

The council meets Tuesday at 5 p.m. at city hall.