ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — The Robertsdale City Council met Monday night and decided on municipal appointments for the coming year, set up a selection committee for a new city engineering position, and approved annexation requests from Casey and Heather Feller and Jeffrey and Kimberly Stone.

All members of the Council, except for Sue Cooper, were present at the meeting.

Council members were not pleased to learn from Mayor Charles H. Murphy and Public Works Director Scott Gilbert that it will probably take approximately an additional $250,000 to finish the city’s new water tank and about $300,000 to complete the new waste water treatment plant.

“It’s not that they have wasted any money,” said Murphy, who added that his administration did not want to take the Council by surprise should it become necessary to ask for more money. He pointed out that it would be about a year before more funds were needed for the wastewater treatment plant.

“We have a couple of directions to take, and we’ll bring it (the issue) back later,” Murphy said.

Advertisements for the new engineering position will be appearing in local newspapers within the next few weeks, Murphy told the council.

One twist is that the candidates, who must have be licensed as a professional engineer in the state of Alabama, must also apply via e-mail. No paper resumes will be accepted.

“We want to make sure the applicants are comfortable with computers,” Murphy explained. He added that candidates should have planning and land management experience and would receive “extra points” if they lived in the area.

The council appointed council members Brent Kendrick and Joe Kitchens to the selection committee. Gilbert will also serve on the committee to select finalists for the $44,000 to $82,000 per year job. It is hoped that a finalist will be available for council approval in December.

The council also voted to appoint Shannon Ellison as City Clerk, Brad Kendrick as Chief of Police, Scott Gilbert as Utilities Director, Ken Raines as City Attorney and Buddy Brackin as Municipal Judge.

For Council appointments, Kitchens was reappointed mayor pro-tem. Kitchens was also appointed to serve on the Planning Commission. Paul Hollingsworth was appointed to the Industrial Board. Sue Cooper was named to the Library Board. Aubrey Grant took a seat and Cooper was appointed to the Parks, Streets and Trees board.

Chief of Police Brad Kendrick told the council that the department is speaking to a wireless company about installing a system throughout the town. Currently, officers on the road run into areas where they can’t call up things like license data on their in-car computers. The wireless system would help correct that. While there is no money in the budget to put in a system now, Murphy wants to explore options should money become available.

“It (the wireless system) will also be available to the general public,” added Murphy. “People could use it at Honeybee Park.”

Kitchens asked to table a proposed yard sale ordinance. As the ordinance is written now, people in Robertsdale having a yard sale would not have one lasting more than three days, no one would be permitted to conduct more than two sales per year, and no residential lot could be used for more than four sales per year. Property owners would be required to register their sale with the city clerk and receive a placard that must be displayed at the sale free of charge.

Campbell has been a champion of the legislation.

“I am not opposed to doing this, but I would like to think a little more,” said Kitchens.