LETTER: Sam Bruce Road: unspinning the spin

In your editorial (“Dump all incumbents message misguided,” by Zach Mitcham, July 15), you mentioned the Sam Bruce Road issue. Thank you for what you said about the road. “When driving down that road, I can’t help but think it could be closed and no one would be the worse for it. It’s in terrible shape. It needs a lot more work than just a bridge.” You described it well. I believe that many people who get all stirred up about the so-called “bridge” have never seen it. They might be surprised to learn that the “bridge” is nothing but a culvert. Hannahs Creek runs through my land and through the culvert, draining four square miles. It washed out in 2003, was fixed (how well it was fixed was a matter of opinion), washed out again in 2005, and has been out since then. Pipes, asphalt, and other debris that the county had dumped there washed over my property.

At some point the state told Wesley Nash, the BOC chairman at the time, that they would help fix it but the road would have to be straightened. I told Wesley that I would work with them on it, but as time went by I finally commented to him one day, “Why don’t you close that portion of the road? Nobody uses it.” He told me the people living on the road would have to agree to that. I wonder if he was surprised when I got signatures in agreement to closing from all of them? At any rate, the BOC voted 5-0 in September 2006 to close a portion of the road.

In a notice of public hearing, the BOC stated that the road had “….ceased to be used by the public to the extent that no substantial public purpose is served…”

In a letter dated Dec. 26, 2006 to me from county attorney Mike Pruett about the “partial abandonment” of Sam Bruce Road and Brown-Hendrix Road, he proposed a very cheap resolution to the problem. He said that the property could be disposed of at its fair market value. He wrote, “Given the circumstances of this road, I would propose that a conveyance of this property to you in exchange for the sum of $1 would suffice as fair market value.”

On Feb. 6, 2007, when the second advertised public hearing was held about closing the road, John Pethel and some of his associates (one in particular) had decided that the road must be fixed and kept open.

It is a very handy access route for people who like to come on my property to poach deer and fish. When the hearing was over, the BOC voted 4-1 to not close the road, a reversal of their previous position. Wesley Jordan was the lone vote that stayed as he had voted before.

I decided to sue the county for their work at the culvert which caused the waste materials to wash onto my property – improper construction materials, poor construction practices, poor compaction, inadequate design and materials to withstand water flow, negligence in constructing the road and negligence in constructing the stream crossing. At this point the lawsuit is making its way slowly through the courts, but not slowly at my request. For the five years since the culvert washed out the second time, only special interest groups have complained. As far as I know, nothing bad has happened because people or emergency vehicles are not able to drive there. However, at least one driver ran into the washout and was injured because the county warnings were not sufficient, and that person got a cash settlement.

I am spending my own money on the lawsuit; the Pethelites are causing the money of the taxpayers to be spent. Is that the most urgent use of Madison County funds? If reopened, how many cars would use Sam Bruce Road per day, compared to some other roads in the county that need repairs? What influences the BOC’s priorities in deciding how money should be spent? If the county should win the lawsuit (after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps just so John could make his point), that is only the beginning. Fixing the road will cost another boatload of money that some say the county doesn’t have. Adding to the costs, the BOC just adopted the 2010 FEMA flood plain map, so now repairs to the crossing at the washout would have to meet the standards of the Army Corps of Engineers.

It didn’t have to be that way.

I offered to work with the county way back, but a little group decided it was their way or no way. And the funny thing is that if Pethel has his way and the road is straightened, improved and a new stream crossing put in, all of that will only serve to increase the value of my property.

What is the old saying about who has the last laugh?

But I won’t be laughing at the Madison County taxpayers.

I’m one of them.

Sincerely,

Marion “Hoss” Cartwright