No such help for private road residents
BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE— Two perennial issues for residents — both weather related — are flooding (see related story) and road conditions. County commissioners heard about both during their Sept. 15 meeting.
Road complaints centered around Southeast 49th Avenue, and not the portion behind the former Hampton Elementary School, which resident April Ewald pointed out was paved though it is no longer even in use.
“Our road hasn’t even been addressed,” she said.
Ewald said county graders cleaning out ditches place the material on the roads, making them very slippery after rainfall. It also narrows the road, so only one vehicle can travel at a time. Vehicles traveling in the opposite direction must pull over or into a driveway to let someone pass. She also said her property is eroding
“It makes it very dangerous,” she said, adding she has heard for years that the county is “going to get to it.”
“I’d like to have a firm date as to when we’re going to get to it because every year it’s been put on the back burner.”
Vito Degregorio shared many of these complaints, but also said a county grader had cut a ditch through one of his driveways without notice, and his son drive right into it and could have been injured.
Commissioner Danny Riddick — after explaining the history of how the other portion of Southeast 49th was paved — said the paving project should begin before year’s end.
Public Works Director Jason Dodds confirmed that the plans are complete and the project is permitted. He said the work would have begun alongside the “Rails to Trails project,” but that project jumped ahead of their schedule and they were not able to piggyback on the water management permit. Now project construction is ready for bid.
The project won’t extend to other deteriorating roads in the area, however. Southeast 49th runs into Southeast 92nd Street, which is privately owned by the residents. As such the county cannot maintain the road in any way, except in a state of emergency. Thus, there was no message of relief for those residents.
Jean Norton said while the road is private, delivery trucks have difficulty traveling the road, let alone an ambulance.
“We don’t have the equipment — big enough tractors — to fix the holes that are in that road. If we can get somebody out there to help us just fix what’s there now, we can probably maintain it,” she said. “But you’re not going go get an ambulance or a fire truck if somebody gets hurt or a house is on fire. It is really bad.”
Norton described people parking roadside and walking to their homes when the road is flooded.
“Everybody says, ‘Oh, it’s a private road. It’s a private community.’ But yet you have people coming up on our doors, hanging stuff on our doors saying, ‘Oh, well vote for me! Vote for me! Vote for me!’ Well, if it’s private, what are you doing up there?”
Riddick said he fought to get the county to grade the road, and finally commissioners did agree they would accept ownership and maintenance of the road if every property owner signed over the road to the county. Riddick said he was never able to get 100% agreement.
“I just felt like this was a golden opportunity for the citizens out there. All they had to do was sign a paper. In fact, I brought it to several people’s houses. All they had to do was sign it,” he said. Those rejecting the offer included a property owner living in Canada he called multiple times, he said.
Commissioner Kenny Thompson backed that up.
“We looked at this road and we studied this road, but nobody would (sign off on it),” he said. “It’s a private road, so the county can’t do nothing about it. I mean you can shake your head no, whatever. I’m just telling you what we went through. We tried to get the road fixed.”
As Riddick said, all of the commissioners have similar issues in their districts. Commissioner Diane Andrews talked about Wynn Cemetery Road and Riverbend. She said it breaks her heart when school buses won’t travel down a road and children have to walk these roads to be picked up. She’s gone to Tallahassee, sought grants, and “begged and pleaded” only to be told the same thing: they can only repair a private road during a state of emergency. Even then, the work only includes making the road passable, not making improvements.
Explanations didn’t assuage everyone’s hard feelings. Two irate residents stormed out of the meeting after addressing commissioners and hearing the excuses.
