During Tuesday’s meeting of the Brownwood City Council, a resolution was unanimously approved to seek sealed proposals for the construction of cells 14-16 at the landfill.

“The City of Brownwood has the regional landfill and it services all of Brown County and some of the smaller counties in the area,” said Brownwood City Manager Emily Crawford. “Based upon our projections of waste, we have about a year and a half left of cell space in the landfill. We have known we would have to be constructing additional cells at the landfill for a few years now, and we have begun the engineering work for the construction in this current fiscal year. What was approved today was the City to go out for bids for the construction of two additional cells at the landfill.”

The current projection for the cost of the new cells is $15 million.

“We do not know if the bids will come in lower than that,” Crawford said. “Certainly that is our hope, but we are in a bit of a quandary in regard to having space capacity available and the need to do the construction. These cells are expected to provide not only the city but the region 15 years worth of capacity.”

Also Tuesday, the City Council unanimously approved the City Manager to sign an agreement between the City of Brownwood and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) for $50,000 to build the capacity of the local Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) beginning upon signing of the agreement through December 31, 2022

The grant is funded through NACCHO from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response to build local Medical Reserve Corps units. Funding provided from this grant will provide resources to the MRC unit to respond, innovate, sustain, and equip.