Motorists on Morgan Road soon may find a change when driving from Helena to Bessemer and back as the Jefferson County Commission moved a through-road agreement to the agenda of Thursday’s commission meeting with the intention of raising the speed limit to 55.
Commission President Jimmie Stephens said in the commission’s committee meeting Tuesday that he has met with the municipal judge and the city clerk in Helena about the speed limit on Morgan Road, which was recently expanded to four lanes. They are planning to raise the speed limit to 55 miles an hour from its current 40 “since it is a four-lane highway with plenty of sightlines for ingress and egress,” Stephens said.
Roads and Transportation Director Chris Nicholson said the area in question had been in unincorporated Jefferson County. Now Helena extends beyond its Shelby County roots.
“Helena annexed (property in Jefferson County) during the construction on Morgan Road,” he said. “That’s why we have a through-road agreement with Bessemer but we didn’t for Helena at the time because it wasn’t Helena’s. But now part of it is Helena’s.”
Stephens said he has fielded calls from residents of his district who had received speeding tickets on that stretch of road.
“If you start at Publix and just go down the hill and take your foot off the gas, you’re running more than 50. It’s created a problem. The day that I went to the municipal court in Helena, there were three of my constituents who had received speeding tickets because they were going 60 in a 40 zone.”
Thursday’s commission meeting will be in Bessemer.
Road Paving
Also Tuesday, County Manager Cal Markert commended the Roads and Transportation Department for its efforts in paving county roads.
“We’re at 77 miles paved so we’re on track to meet our 100-mile goal,” he said. “I want to thank them for working in this heat and the rain and still be able to meet their goal.”
Medical Care in Jail
Wayne Rogers, a spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office, gave commissioners an update on the recent addition of a second nurse practitioner for the county jail. Now there are two nurse practitioners, one whose shift is 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the other’s is 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“We have nurse practitioner coverage now for 15 hours, essentially when everybody’s awake, or supposed to be awake,” Rogers said. “In the last six months since we did this, we’ve only had to take one person outside the jail to get stitches because the nurse practitioners are both very well trained in stitching up things.
“What was happening was our nurse practitioner would leave at 2 and most fights in the jail happened around dinnertime,” he said. “We were having to take a lot of folks to UAB to get sewed up if they got in a fight. Not happening anymore. We’ve cut the number of ER visits in the jail about half over the last six months, which has saved a significant amount.”
Lashunda Scales asked about the sheriff’s department’s efforts to increase the number of deputies. Rogers said salary increases approved during last year’s budget hearing made a difference.
“Our recruiting has been better since that because our wages are now much more competitive than they were,” he said. “Our competitors mostly are the city of Hoover, city of Vestavia, Tuscaloosa County, Shelby County. Those are our biggest competitors (and) we are much more competitive with them now than we were.”
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