A bridge bid, discussion of phone line placement concerns and a presentation from a former football star now in a new line of work highlighted Monday’s Lincoln County Board of Supervisors meeting.

     Former Ole Miss and New Orleans Saints standout running back Deuce McAllister led off the meeting by speaking on behalf of Waste Pro, a garbage collection company.

     The city and county’s garbage collection contract is about to go up for bid, and McAllister was introducing the board to the company. McAllister noted the company has a large recycling program in addition to garbage collection, something that he said would suite the city’s recycling program well.

     County officials thanked McAllister for his presentation but took no action. Waste Management currently has the city and county contract for garbage collection.

     Later in the meeting was the bid opening for a new bridge to be installed on California Road. The work is being paid for completely out of federal funding and will come at no cost to local taxpayers.

     Five bids were received for the project that state engineers estimated would cost $738,603.80.

     The winning and lowest bid came in at $705,108.06 from Magco Inc. of Laurel. The board unanimously voted to accept the bid.

     Ryan Holmes of Dungan Engineering said he felt the county came out with a good deal.

     “The county got a good bid price on it,” he said. “It came in at 4.5 percent under budget. It was a very competitive process. We had a lot of interest, with about 12 companies requesting information.”

     Holmes said he expects the work on the new bridge to start within the next two months.

     In other business, supervisors heard from District Attorney Dee Bates about his wishes to place a metal storage building on county property, preferably near the courthouse, to store court- related documents. Bates pointed out to the board that the documents stored would be solely for Lincoln County.

     Bates said his office would cover the cost of the building. He then asked for suggestions from the board on where to place it.

     Board members agreed they’d work quickly to find a suitable place for the building, but did not come to a conclusion on where that would be.

     Two representatives from AT&T then addressed the board about concerns supervisors have voiced in past meetings regarding communications lines not being buried deep enough or being buried too close to the road.

     Billy Thomas with AT&T told the supervisors that they would do whatever they could to help them and make the process simple.

     “Give us a few days’ notice and we can take care of it,” said Thomas, referring to questions or problems the supervisors may have.

     Also at the meeting, Region 8 Executive Director Dave Van addressed the board for his annual presentation.

     Van thanked the board for their support and said that he looked forward to Region 8 continuing to serve the mental health needs of Lincoln County in the future. He pointed out that of the five Mississippi counties they serve, Lincoln is the second-fastest growing in terms of the need for mental health.

     Lincoln County Chancery Clerk Tilmon Bishop complimented Region 8’s work.

     “When you have a person with a mental problem, they often don’t know they need help, but they’re families do,” he said. “To me, Region 8 has made a big difference to families who need help. I’m very thankful for this facility as well as the people who work there.”

     The board will meet again on Sept. 4, when the 2012-13 fiscal year budget is expected to be discussed.