By Scottie Brown

The Selma Times-Journal

 

For the third straight year, Valley Grande will try to use grant funds for a sewage project in the Overlook Hills neighborhood.

The Valley Grande City Council adopted a resolution Monday during its regularly scheduled meeting stating the city would apply for a $450,000 Community Development Block Grant from the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. Valley Grande plans to match the grant with a contribution of $45,000, for a total of $495,000.

With the grant the city plans to fix sewer lines for an estimated 96 families.

This will be the third year the city has applied for the grant to rehabilitate the sewer lines in the Overlook Hills subdivision.

Regardless of previous failed applications, Valley Grande engineering consultant, Ray Hogg, said the chances of the a successful application had increased.

“We think we’ve got a pretty good chance,” Hogg said. “Each of the last two years, according to the point rate system, we’ve come up 10 points short. ADECA, in their point rating system, there is a maximum of 200 points, but you can get a bonus of 10 points if you submit the same application three years in a row and did not get funded. This is our third year, so we are very encouraged by that.”

The rehabilitation of the pipes, which will consist of repairing broken pipes and inserting a liner to create a slick surface within the pipes, would benefit not only the 96 families within Overlook Hills but also the city, said Mayor Wayne Labbe.

“What that does for us, it prevents us from having to dig up the streets and repair streets and things like that,” Labbe said. “It is a service to those 96 families, because they don’t have any other options. They can’t put in septic tanks.”

In other news from the meeting:

4 The City of Valley Grande also donated $5,000 to the Crime Stoppers organization, which works in both Selma and Valley Grande. Labbe said the decision was made because of the organization’s work in the town.

“It was really surprising the amount of money that is spent in Crime Stoppers in Valley Grande, and also in Selma,” Labbe said. “People around criminals, most of the times, they know what they do. You’ve got to look at it that, that $400 or $500 was well spent, because somebody else didn’t get in harms way or have something stolen from them.”