After a year of planning to construct a sidewalk along George Wallace Drive, the Troy City Council is only a month away from the project’s beginnings.

In the Troy City Council meeting Tuesday, council members met with a project planner to discuss the implementation of a sidewalk running along George Wallace Drive, from the intersections of University Avenue to U.S. Highway 231.

Troy Mayor Jimmy Lunsford said the project will be completely federally funded, and after a required 21 days of advertising for bids, construction will come next.

“We started this project almost a year ago,” Lunsford said.

“The bid will be made during that time (of advertising), then we’ll open those bids in July and review them with the state. And, we hope to have them awarded by the first or second meeting in July.”

Lunsford said the project is one particularly important to the city, both to give Troy University students a safer way to walk in that area and encourage other pedestrian travel.

“It will be beneficial because there is a lot of student traffic,” Lunsford said.

“I hope it will encourage more people to get out and just walk.”

The council also awarded two different liquor licenses in its meeting. The first will go to Ducks Unlimited, a company planning to hold a promotion event at the Pike County Cattlemen’s Association.

The other license was awarded to the Courtyard Marriott, Troy’s newest hotel, which plans on opening June 18.

The business will serve alcohol in its restaurant.

The only other action the council took Tuesday was to declare weeds a public nuisance at 110 Sun Street. This was done after the city notified owners of the problem and nothing was done in response, said Council President Johnny Witherington.

Witherington said this is will allow the city’s building department to go in and clean up the property.

While the new budget year, which begins in October, is still some time out, Lunsford said he will begin the process in the next couple of weeks.

“This will be more in depth than we’ve ever been before,” Lunsford said.

Lunsford said in tight economic times, he plans to hold meetings with each of the department heads in the next few weeks to discuss each item in the respective budgets.

“We’ll see if there’s some way we can do something better,” Lunsford said.

The city is likely to not pass an actual budget until closer to October.