The Mower County board is primed for a busy Tuesday.

The board is set to vote on a recommendation to begin accepting plastics Nos. 3-7 at the Mower County recycling center, and the board will also decide whether it will fund additions to beautify the Oakland Place Southeast bridge or ask for additional funding.

The meeting is set to begin at 8:30 a.m. in the board room in the basement of the Mower County Government Center, 201 First St. NE.

Recycling

The solid waste committee is expected to recommend the board move ahead on a switch to accept plastics Nos. 3-7 along with the current Nos. 1-2.

The move is the latest in a push for the county to bolster its recycling program after it voted down a switch to a single-sort recycling system on Aug. 25, 2015. After the vote, the board vowed to make changes to improve its program.

In October, the board unanimously voted to increase the average household recycling rate from about $16.10 a year to $25 a year to help fund improvements that will include additions to the Mower County Recycling Center. The move was also expected to eventually lead to accepting more types of plastics.

If the board moves ahead to accept more plastics, it’s not clear when the service would begin, as more work and discussions are likely coming.

The county needs to renegotiate a new agreement with Cedar Valley Services, which contracts with the county to pickup recycling and staff the recycling center, as its current contract is up this spring.

The board is expected to spend $20,000 for additional outreach and education opportunities regarding recycling. The county will also likely discuss increasing curbside collection from every other week to weekly, while offering different shaped or sized bins after many people voiced concerns about the current bins being too small.

The changes could also reshape the Mower County Recycling Center, 1111 Eighth Ave. NE, to include a drop off portion running north to south with two garage doors on the west side for recycling trucks to enter and drop off recycling without leaving the main building garage doors open, which in the past has affected utilities by letting out heat during the winter. That addition will also include exterior drop boxes so the public can drop off recycling without having to enter the building on weekdays.

Oakland bridge

The county is slated to replace the Oakland Place Southeast bridge, but the question is whether the board will opt to fund a Vision 2020 request to beautify the bridge or if it will try to seek Hormel Foundation dollars.

The county board is scheduled to replace the Oakland Place bridge with $1.74 million in state bond funds that are reserved for 2016. The county also has $250,000 set aside for the project. However, the county is facing a funding gap for the project, as it had asked for $2 million from the state.

Late last year, the county board discussed the possibility of seeking Hormel Foundation dollars to fund the bridge’s special design, landscaping, brickwork and wider sidewalks requested by Vision 2020 through its Visual Quality Manual, which is the Gateway to Austin Committee’s plan to beautify bridges on key roads in Austin.

However, board members voiced hesitations about funding the additions to the bridge project.

“Any of the over/above costs from that would have to come from special interests,” Commissioner Tim Gabrielson said last year.