BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
A neighborhood of residents pulling together to help each other was able to convince Bradford County Commissioners to at least provide the materials to help.
Following a couple of meetings and additional contacts with county officials, residents of Riverbend Estates agreed to transport and distribute lime rock from county property to repair their private roads, which were once again left destroyed by the heavy rainfall that accompanied Tropical Storm Debby.
Only three commissioners were able to attend an emergency meeting on Aug. 9, and not all of them agreed to declare the matter an emergency.
Commissioner Danny Riddick said “every” road in Bradford County could be the subject of an emergency meeting.
“Yesterday, I had three calls, three different private roads that you can’t get down. So next week, do you want me to call Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and put all three of them on emergency meetings?”
It was a rhetorical question, however Commissioner Diane Andrews who represents the Riverbend area had an answer: “Yes, sir!”
But Riddick continued, pointing out the county road department was “struggling” to repair the county’s publicly owned roads.
“I don’t even call (Public Works Director Jason Dodds or County Manager Scott Kornegay) and report them roads, because I know right now our road department is struggling just as hard as it can just to get some of the regular county roads passable. And two, as far as the fire truck, you’d be hard pressed to get a fire truck back in this area even on a on a good day without the rain,” he said.
The crowd response in the Gov. Charley E. Johns Conference Center was just the first of many times Commission Chairwoman Carolyn Spooner had to call for order.
Riddick said he wanted to help everyone, but if the county repaired this private road, it would have to repair every private road.
“I don’t think we should have any private roads in Bradford County. I’m just being honest with you. But unless this board was OK to buy two more graders and (add) probably five or six more people in the road department to take care of those roads, there’s nothing we can do about it at this time,” he said.
Riddick added that Riverbend has been an issue since he’s been on the board. Any action taken now will be undone by the next storm, he said. For whatever reasons they chose to live there, Riddick said the residents knew they chose to live on a private road that they would have to maintain.
“Everybody in here, when you bought your piece of property, you weren’t flown in on a helicopter. You had to drive into that location, and you had to drove down that road to see,” he said.
He maintained that while the road may be inaccessible by certain emergency vehicles, it was not altogether impassible and therefore did not meet the emergency requirements for the county to break protocol and repair a private road.
“You can’t expect that these people will continue to drive in a ditch or on people’s property to get around that massive hole at the end of the road,” Andrews said, citing the opinions of Sheriff Gordon Smith and Fire Rescue Chief Ben Carter about responding to emergencies under these circumstances. She said if she was having a heart attack at the end of that road, she would tell her family to sue the county before she died.
“It is wrong that we put people’s life in jeopardy because we don’t want to fill up a hole with some dirt,” she said.
Doing so required agreeing the road was impassible and that repairing it would benefit the general public. Carter said most fire and rescue vehicles would not be able to travel the road. Others would have difficulty, but if there is a call, they would respond, he said.
Emergency Management Director Capt. Brad Witt explained the county would also have to use its own resources to do so in anticipation that it might eventually be reimbursed by federal disaster relief funding.
Resident Jassy Crews told the board that the county had always come to repair the road following a hurricane-type event because portions regularly wash out and become impassible.
“We all pay taxes. We all pay tax at the pump it for this stuff. I understand that money goes to county-maintained roads, but the money that the county is getting right now for those materials is not coming from the county budget. It might be in the beginning, but in the end, you’re reimbursed for that. And if one of you had a loved one on that road, you’d want it fixed, too.” she said. “
“It’s really hard to understand why our county, which always promotes that you are here for the citizens, will not stand up for the citizens. It is unfathomable that we’re here and that it took getting an emergency meeting to get that approved, and the fact that our county, instead of assessing the roads and prioritizing which ones were the worst, they took and maintained the county roads that should have had minimal damage because they’re maintained regularly,” Crews said.
“We have a family that has three disabled people that live in the house,” Jessica Soulsby said. “We have three residents that are just about wheelchair bound. They cannot walk. They do not have vehicles of their own. Arc cannot come down there and take them to their doctor’s appointments,” she said, adding that children going back to school would have to stand on the side of the highway because the buses could not enter and make a U-turn.
“This is a life and death situation,” Andrews said. “I don’t want to be responsible, to be the one who says we cannot do this because we can. We all know in a state of emergency that we fill out FEMA paperwork and we’re we are given every single penny back to the county. It’s not going to count. It may cost the county today and tonight and tomorrow, but to say it’s going to cost the county, not going to cost the county. We are in a state of emergency, and that money will be replaced.”
Andrews was also exasperated that it took an emergency meeting to address the problem.
“This is ridiculous that we’ve had to go this far, but in some cases, sometimes you just have to do what you got to do. These people matter just as much as any other person in Bradford County. I know for a fact that there was truckloads of stuff hauled behind a store in Hampton. I know there was truckloads of stuff hauled to Lawtey. These people matter, too, and it’s time that we start treating — and I’m just going to say it — people in District 5 just like we treat everybody else,”
Kornegay informed commissioners that the county had enough lime rock on hand to be able to make some repairs to the roads at Riverbend. Spooner recommended the board approve making the emergency road repairs and also look for a long-term solution. Riddick offered an alternative, asking Kornegay if the county could give the lime rock to the residents and let the residents perform the work.
“If they’re willing to do the work, they could probably get a whole lot more done if we supplied them the lime rock, and then they could get started. Because to be honest, I don’t know when the county can get started, even if we vote for it right this second, because we still got other roads that are that we’re trying to get passable,” Riddick said.
With the attorney’s blessing, Spooner agreed, “That seemed to be a reasonable solution that would satisfy everybody and take care of this emergency. Let’s do it.”
“I’m glad we had this discussion,” Riddick said. “I’m not against helping anybody, so please don’t ever think that. But you know, I’ve got to make sure that we’re fair and equal with 18,000 people in the whole county and do what’s right. So, I feel like we came up with the right solution today, and hopefully y’all feel the same way.”
