A paving plateau

Norman Brant's Scott County Highway Department personnel have their hands full just trying to keep the county's roads in drivable condition.

Pavement that was put down on some roads just a few years ago is already starting to break up, peeling off in layers that expose the dirt underneath, leaving huge potholes.

The roads require constant maintenance, Brant said as he surveyed one of the worst, County Road 216, where washboard ripples and potholes make for a bumpy ride.

"We're going to spend every dollar we possibly can on roads," Brant said.

The idea is to eventually pave all the roads in the county that are not paved -- an estimated 180 miles out of 325 total -- and to overlay roads like 216 where the pavement is sometimes not even as good as gravel any longer. But this year's $350,000 blacktopping budget only allows for 10 miles of road to be blacktopped at an estimated cost of $35,000 per mile.

Ed Evans, left, and Bobby Eskew of the Scott County Highway Department filled in potholes with a coal mix along County Road 311 south of Scott City on Thursday. (Kit Doyle)

A large part of the problem is a batch of cold mix applied a few years ago that is now peeling off.

"We almost need to grade some of the blacktop roads," Brant says of those roads, which have the appearance of gray gravel in some sections.

Now county commissioners say the Highway Department's $1.2 million budget has reached a plateau, where there's only enough money to maintain roads, not to significantly improve gravel roads by blacktopping. Another funding source is needed, and Presiding Commissioner Jamie Burger says one way to get that funding is through passage of the half-cent law enforcement sales tax extension on Tuesday's ballot.

"We've hit a level on our roads where it takes everything we have just to maintain what we have," Burger said. "The reason we're after the sales tax continuation is we don't want property taxes to raise."

About $350,000 of the budget comes from property taxes. The rest of the money comes from state funds, vehicle taxes, fees and other sources.

Joe Scott, who lives on County Road 219 between Kelso and Chaffee, said he's asked for road improvements several times.

"They always bring up the 'no money' thing," Scott said.

Currently the county doesn't transfer any money to its road and bridge fund that pays for highway department operations. If the sales tax continuation is approved, though, that could change, Burger said, and some general revenue money could be transferred.

"We need to be able to use general revenue to support every part of county government," Burger said.

$1.6 million a year

The county's law enforcement sales tax was approved in 2000 for an eight-year period to construct and staff the new county jail. Burger wants to continue the tax to continue to supplement law enforcement funding, freeing up general revenue funds that would have to be transferred to law enforcement for other uses, like improving roads -- one of several possible uses for the money laid out by commissioners over the past few weeks as they've campaigned for the tax across the county. After next year, the roughly $700,000 per year bond payments for jail construction will be gone, freeing up even more of the tax money.

The sales tax brings in about $1.6 million a year. Brant said the commissioners have told him $100,000 to $200,000 of that could be transferred for road use.

But that plan is anything but guaranteed. Just a few days before the vote, the tax has met with stiff opposition from the county's largest city, Sikeston, once again enflaming a north-south divide that has long simmered among county residents.

Sikeston's opposition

The Sikeston City Council unanimously approved a resolution Monday in opposition to the sales tax extension. During the meeting council members expressed several reasons for the opposition, including a belief that much of the money will go to fix roads in the northern part of the county. Council members also opposed the tax on the basis that it doesn't have a sunset clause built in and because Sikeston is exploring the possibility of putting its own law enforcement sales tax on a future ballot.

Sikeston's position has put Commissioner Dennis Ziegenhorn in a political bind. Ziegenhorn has joined Burger and Commissioner Ron McCormick in the campaign for approving the tax, but when Sikeston opposed the tax, Ziegenhorn, a Sikeston resident who represents the county's southern end, had to stop his vocal support and "leave the vote to the people."

Mayor Mike Marshall had previously said the city would take no official position on the tax extension. However, the council acted anyway.

Marshall said Thursday that, if such a proposal was possible, he would support a county sales tax initiative that would earmark some amount of money for Sikeston.

Burger said the tax on the ballot is not about where people live. Good county roads attract more residents and businesses, increasing the county's tax base and quality of life for all county residents, he said.

The majority of Sikeston council members didn't return calls to the Southeast Missourian for comment, but Ward 4 Councilman Michael Harris said his opposition was based on the lack of a sunset provision, not on the road issue.

"They wanted to make the sales tax perpetual," Harris said. "So I think that's probably where the most concern came out of it. The city of Sikeston, we have needs as well, and at some point we may want a tax."

More sales tax is paid on purchases made in Sikeston than anywhere else in the county -- 7.725 percent in the Scott County section of the city, 7.925 in the New Madrid County section. Sales tax revenue divides the county like it divides roads. Residents in the northern part of Scott County do much of their shopping in Cape Girardeau, while south county residents shop in Sikeston, making Sikeston residents feel as if they are paying an unfair portion of the bill.

That high tax rate may discourage voters from approving more sales tax to meet the city's needs for updated facilities, equipment and pay raises for the Sikeston Department of Public Safety, Harris said.

Harris said the road issue had no bearing on his decision.

Brant said council members who expressed that sentiment don't understand how the highway department works.

"We go where the need is ... no matter what part of the county or who it is," Brant said.

But even some people living in north Scott County, along the very county roads that need repairs, question how the county government would spend the extra money freed up by the passage of the tax extension.

Doug Jansen lives along County Road 216, where workers were out Thursday patching potholes with shovels and cold mix. Jansen questions the effectiveness of the patching, saying "the shoveling just doesn't help" on a gravel road he says is more like gravel than blacktop.

"I just wonder if it would go toward that," Jansen said of the talk of transferring money to improve roads.

John Weismueller, who lives along the same road, said the tax is a good idea if it will mean road improvements.

"I'm for it," he said. "Anything to get a good road back here. I've seen a lot of gravel roads in better shape than this one."

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182