After more than two years without a noticeable improvement, some Sunflower County residents are again speaking out about the condition of their daily route to and from home.
"Two years ago I came to several meetings and they promised me they were going to come clean my ditches, they were going to fix my roads and they haven't done nothing," said Brukner Kiker Road resident Becky Oswalt.
She and Earl Oswalt said although county officials indicated that they would fix the road, it is still in the same deplorable condition as before. Mrs. Oswalt mentioned a piece of equipment that the county alleged they were buying at that time that they would use on her road and it required at least two trained people to operate it. She then asked what had happened regarding that.
Mr. Oswalt mentioned what he alluded to as an ineffective practice of the county road crews to come out when rain is forecasted and run a box blade along the roadway. "And it don't do nothing but make a slop hole, a mud hole," he said.
He also mentioned what he deemed the useless practice of using a shovel to dig a narrow trench after it rains for the water to drain off. Oswalt said that doesn’t work. "Why are we wasting our money? I'm a taxpayer, I pay my taxes; I expect something done to my road and taken care of right, not half way,” Oswalt said.
He asserted that he had talked to District 5 Supervisor Gloria Dickerson on several occasions and that she mentioned actions that she has asked to be implemented in order to get road repairs done; however, Oswalt declared that he has not seen the county put any of those measures into play.
Citing that he grew up on Brukner Kiker road, he declared that it has never flooded like it does now and it is partly due to the water drainage routes that the county is currently using to dispel the runoff. He asserted that in the decade and a half that he has been back in the area, the road conditions have gotten worse.
He said, “Are we going backwards in time? In 15 years, if you can't do something with the roads, then you need to get rid of some people and put some people in there that know how to do what they're doing. If they can't be trained to do it, then something is wrong with the system."
Oswalt said his issue was not with Road Manager T.J. Fairley’s performance; however, he did take issue with the number of assistant road managers and their productivity. "You've got three or four road managers out there; if they don't know how to operate the equipment how can they tell somebody else what to do? Why are we wasting money on people that don't know what they're doing?" he asked.
Fairley asserted that one of the issues along that stretch has to do with the land forming done by the farmers and that the fields are higher than the road. Oswalt too reminded the lawmakers of a statement they made during his last visit before them wherein it was stated that farmers are required to obtain a permit before doing any land forming.
He reasoned that if that was true, then it was the lawmakers who gave the landowners permission to landform in the way that it was done.
However, District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald explained that only some of the farmers come and actually get the permit and asserted that when they do, the county engineer directs them on where to drain the runoff water from their fields.
He said that another issue is farmers running 80,000-pound trucks on soft, wet roads. Donald then said that the issue at hand was to find a solution and not to point fingers. He said that Fairley has a plan to correct the damage, but it does no good since the farmers continue to run the trucks. He said everyone was doing what they could.
Oswalt continued to assert that if the farmers are not complying then the county is authorized and should force the farmers to conform regardless of how much money they pay in taxes.
Conversely, he said that he spends thousands of dollars per year on his vehicles. Mrs. Oswalt said she traded her car in for an SUV, but still can't get off of her road when it floods.
Apparently in concert with the Oswalts, Dickerson said she went out to assess the road on Saturday, but refused to drive her vehicle down the road because of its condition.
"I said that road is like a river, it was totally ridiculous what I looked at," she said.
Dickerson said she was curious as to how the residents were even able to get out.
During the discussion, numerous opinions of possible solutions were offered up from the county leaders, the road manager and engineer, as well as the Oswalts.
County Engineer Ron Cassada said, "Everybody's right, every drainage situation is different." He asserted that it could be the ditches or the way the drainage is routed. Cassada said he would assess the road again to determine the best solution. He said that it's not about what's been done or being done, but whether or not it's being done correctly.
He asserted that many of the smaller roads in the county have a range of issues. One thing he will consider is the possibility of building the road up; however, Fairley said building it up was not the solution, but agreed that Cassada should evaluate it for himself.
President Riley Rice queried, "We had the problem two and a half years ago, we don't have a plan as to what we can do in two and a half years?" He asserted that he was not blaming anyone, but just wanted to know what could be done to alleviate the problem.
Dickerson said, "We haven't attempted to solve the problem and we should have attempted to solve the problem two and a half years ago." She said it appears that if the county doesn't get a complaint on the roads, then they don't check on the roads.
Prior to opening up the discussion with the Brukner Kiker Road residents, Dickerson had already asked about the status of reports that she had previously requested and not received. The reports would list the roads that the assistant road managers had traveled and record any problems they found.
Rice instructed Fairley and Cassada to get a plan and work it so the residents would not have to return with the same issue.
