The Russellville city council approved two resolutions that would allow decorative poles to be placed at the intersection of Fourth and Bethal Streets, as part of the construction of the new First Southern National Bank and the expansion of the intersection at Fourth and Bethel streets.

The city council passed the resolutions, one with the bank and one with the state’s Transportation Cabinet. Councilman Bill Decker abstained from the one pertaining to First Southern due to his affiliation with the bank, but voted yes on the states.

The council agreed Tuesday to authorize Russellville Mayor Mark Stratton to execute said agreement on behalf of the city.

“What this is, is that down there where they are building the bank near the stop light, they (First Southern National Bank) are asking for decorative type poles that come up with the arms that come over. That has to have the approval of the state which has to have our buy-in,” said mayor Stratton.

The mayor told his council First Southern National Bank agreed they would pay the difference in cost for the decorative poles because they are more costly.

“They want to do it to dress up that area. But before I would say we would get into that, I wanted to get an agreement with First Southern. I talked to Alex Keltner, super nice, he said he no problem,” said Stratton.

“On that project even the new medal poles they put out has made a big difference in the looks of it down there,” said Councilman Jimmy Davenport. Mayor Stratton agreed.

“I’ve seen the plans the other day when I went down and talked to Alex and that’s going to be super nice. These poles are kinda like a step to help dress up that area, and it also gives us an inside track where we can acquire these poles if we want to do this somewhere else in the city,” said Stratton. “When that’s all said and done that is really going to be nice down there. Talking to Alex, all this construction will be kinda going on at the same time as far as widening lanes, but I think that is going to be a tremendous asset for us down in that area of traffic rolling in and out.”