By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

The Clanton City Council has approved moving forward with converting the city’s streetlights to LED bulbs.

During a Dec. 20 meeting, Mayor Billy Joe Driver said Alabama Power had asked if the municipality was planning on converting the lights.

Driver initially suggested using Sixth Street as a pilot to see how the light looked.

Council members wanted to go ahead and get the full project started, since it was at the recommendation of the power company and it would be responsible for the maintenance.

There are more than 900 streetlights in the city of Clanton.

LED lights are brighter and more energy efficient than traditional streetlights.

“It will save them money, and not go up on us (our bill),” Driver said.

When the conversion would begin was unknown at the time of the meeting, according to Driver.

Also during the meeting, Rachel Davidson made a presentation about the Little Free pantries and libraries that she and hope to bring to Clanton. She said there are people who may need food, but do not qualify for other forms of assistance. Other benefits are that the pantry is anonymous and accessible 24 hours a day, Davidson said.

“We can give you a blueprint, so that Eagle Scouts can make them or something for their project or the vocational school could make them,” Davidson said. “Basically, we just want to be able to have food available at anytime.”

Food in the pantries would be checked on a regular basis to ensure that nothing was expired. Davidson said a list of volunteers and the week they had agreed to check and stock the little free pantry could be kept on the side of it.

Councilman Jeffery Price said the food needed to run through a nonprofit in order to be protected by the Good Samaritan law. Davidson and Ellison are working on establishing a nonprofit with the state. They wanted to see if the city was interested before moving forward.

The City Council will review the information and is expected to consider the topic further at a later date.