Cape Girardeau County paving process fraught with detours, frustrations and unmet expectations

FRED LYNCH ~ flynch@semissourian.com Construction equipment was seen near a redirected stretch of County Road 532. [Click to enlarge]

Cape Girardeau County residents who want their roads paved face dead ends and a dusty process that leaves them confused.

They aren't the only ones.

Volunteer members of the county's road and bridge advisory board, charged with making recommendations on the best way to prioritize road projects, say they are growing weary. Some feel the county commission has hampered their credibility by not sticking to policy. Others have criticized the county's record keeping, as important documents have been lost multiple times and others questionably notarized. Frustration is building as the advisory board addresses promises made to property owners years ago under loose and changing rules. Some have questioned whether roads are being built out of favoritism rather than need. Meanwhile, records show that major decisions are being made without formal cost estimates and without formal votes. Roads are started before bridge locations are approved by property owners.

On Aug. 18, the board reviewed concerns by another group of upset property owners wanting help in getting their long-standing paving request filled. Board members also tried to understand why the county was devoting so much money to upgrading another county road, which passes through uninhabited farm land.

"Both of these are another set of skeletons that were in the closet before we were ever formed," said David Blumenberg, one of the 11 advisory board members.

The volunteer board had just finished hearing from three County Road 623 residents, who'd complained that paving was being held up on their road by two property owners unwilling to give the county more than a 30-foot easement. A county paving policy approved in 1999 requires 60 feet.

Grappling with complaints

Easement size is just one recurrent issue plaguing the advisory board. They often grapple with complaints rooted in muddy policies dating back to the mid-1980s. Under the old rules, people could pay for dust control in the form of oil or hard surfacing — and at times they were allowed to pay the county to move up on a paving priority list.

"People thought we were playing favorites, and I can see how people would see that," said Scott Bechtold, the county's highway administrator. "That was not intentional."

Not everyone who wanted a hard-surfaced road got it, which is what happened to those living on a dead-end stretch of County Road 623.

"There are people who feel like they were promised paving," Bechtold said. "I've seen commissioners say, 'We can probably look at that in two or three years' and people hear 'two years' and as far as they were concerned, it was promised. But 'probably' also means we might not be able to do it."

Others, like Roland Sander, signed an easement and expected paving, only to learn that the paperwork had been lost. He complained to the advisory board earlier this year that he'd signed the paper three times and was still waiting for paving.

Road and bridge board members have moved forward in correcting some inconsistencies, such as setting deadlines for easements, ending the pay-to-pave program and abiding by the county's 1999 paving policy.

Some of the board's suggestions to the commission, such as easement deadlines, have been ignored. The advisory board has no authority over county workers such as Bechtold, though he is responsible for relaying their messages to the commissioners.

"The whole paving policy needs to be reworked," said Larry Payne, the board's chairman.

The policy requires 100 percent signed easements in order for a road to be paved, and those easements must be a total of 60 feet, twice the amount required by the state. Bechtold said the wider road is safer. He said ditches can be added to allow water to run off rather than creating a driving hazard and ruining pavement; the space also allows utilities to put lines away from the road surface. Property owners have argued that utility companies can pay for easements if they want them.

Selecting roads

As part of the Proposition 1 tax campaign in 2006, Bechtold produced three lists of roads destined for improvements, which start with grading and end with some form of paving. More than two dozen of the roads appear on multiple lists. At least 15 roads represent paving commitments made by the county before 2006.

Bechtold said the county has five-year plans to replace bridges and equipment.

"We haven't had an overall road plan. Maybe we should," he said. "Actually, we probably will be working toward that as we get a little more data on our projects and [Prop 1] money, so we can make projections." The advisory board was approved in 2006 as part of the campaign to pass the half-cent sales tax for road improvements and public safety.

In May 2007, the advisory board formally asked the county commission to approve a tentative dust-control plan, which would include putting chip-and-seal surfaces on roads scattered throughout the county as a test. The request for bids went out late; roads were not prepared for paving. No bids were submitted. As a result, instead of chip and seal, nearly six miles of roads were paved with hot mix.

The advisory board regrouped and made plans for a $3.1 million 2008 program to grade and pave roads, of which more than $900,000 would be spent on chip and seal. The board set a Feb. 15 deadline for easements to be signed and notarized. The commission changed the deadline twice. Some roads were dropped from the program, reducing this year's plan to $2.4 million for grading and paving roads.

Standardizing road planning has resulted in battles among the commissioners over planning and process.

"We don't vote on whether to build this bridge or that bridge or improve this road or that road," said 1st District Commissioner Larry Bock. "If the need is there, it's there."

Bock is the commissioner responsible for the county's highway and bridge authority.

In January, the commissioners agreed to grandfather the 50-foot easements signed by County Road 436 property owners, as long as the easements were notarized. But one property owner refused to allow his old easement to be notarized, and an attempt by a county official to use an old voter registration card in a rare method of notarization failed after the paper was declared null and void because the owner's wife hadn't signed. That road was dropped from the paving program.

County Road 532

Another dispute has stirred over County Road 532.

One of the least-traveled roads in the county is the section of County Road 532 that connects two other county roads, 525 and 535. But County Road 532 sees not more than six to 10 cars a day, according to county officials. It isn't well-traveled in part because the road twice dips into and runs concurrently with Lovejoy Creek, through land owned by crop farmer Vernon Meyr. The creek is usually dry, but a hard rain creates a flash-flood hazard.

When Bechtold announced at a July commission meeting that a U.S. Army National Guard unit would arrive later that month to move one section of County Road 532 out of the bed of Lovejoy Creek, 2nd District Commissioner Jay Purcell peppered him with budget questions. Bechtold estimated the project would cost the county $20,000 but said he was not sure.

Purcell said he recalls visiting the road shortly after being elected to office, and like the other two commissioners, he signed off on numerous documents for environmental and other studies required by the project. But Purcell said he saw those as an endorsement to "go ahead and investigate the possibilities," not as permission to proceed with the roadwork.

Bock said he supported improvements on the road only if the U.S. Army National Guard could be convinced to provide labor and equipment as part of a training exercise. Without actually putting the deal to a vote, the county commission accepted the National Guard's help as part of the federal Innovative Readiness Training program.

"That's what's sticking in my craw — that we moved along without a process in a county commission meeting," Purcell said. "These things should have gone through a process, where we put it on the agenda and said, 'We're going to do this road.'"

"This happened before he ever got elected as a commissioner," Jones said. "This happened when Joe Gambill was a commissioner."

The county agreed to provide the soldiers with fuel, gravel and creek-stabilizing materials. County road workers installed three culverts. A bridge will be needed on the east end of the improved road, but no plans have been made for it, Bechtold said.

Complicated situation

What complicates the situation further is that one of the affected property owners — Michael Merget — is a friend of Jones'. In 2006, Merget and his wife bought more than 65 acres next to Meyr's property on County Road 532, and the couple had plans to build a dream home and horse ranch there. Jones said when he learned his friends planned to build a home there, the news prompted him as a county official into action because a storm would limit emergency access to the home. Jones said the county did not pursue the improvement out of favoritism, however. It was solely an "emergency deal," he said. Because the process with the National Guard took so long, the Mergets changed their minds and bought a Bollinger County property with room for their horses. Merget said he will wait for the real estate market to pick up again before selling the land he bought along County Road 532.

Capt. Robert Daly of the Festus, Mo.-based Missouri National Guard 220th Engineer Company (HZ) wrote in an e-mail to the Southeast Missourian that the two-week training was completed successfully.

"The county got a road out of the deal, saving, at minimum, tens of thousands of dollars for the taxpayers," Daly wrote. "We received an excellent training opportunity, and the local community was able to see their soldiers at work — doing things that their tax dollars paid to do."

When the road and bridge advisory board members asked Bechtold about County Road 532 on Aug. 18, he told them it was "a nice road."

Board member George Miller said he was glad to learn that but felt the county resources would have been better spent on roads affecting more people.

Meyr said he didn't know who got the idea to move the road.

"When the county commission sent me a letter asking if I would be interested in giving some land if they could move the road out of creek, I felt that was the time to do it. I'm not fussing about it," he said.

The Cape Girardeau County Road and Bridge Advisory Board meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the county administration building, 1 Barton Square in Jackson.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127

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County Road 532 discussed

County Road 623 discussed