County notarizes easement years after it was signed

Getting County Road 436 paved is Cape Girardeau County's No. 1 priority.

"It's been on the plate for years," said Larry Bock, the county commissioner who oversees road and bridge issues.

For more than a decade, the county has promised to cover the gravel road with some form of asphalt. Two stretches of the road have been paved. But the last 2.2 miles could land the county in court and hurt the credibility of the county's fledgling road and bridge board.

For cattle farmer Lawrence McBryde, the problem starts where the pavement ends and the stretch of gravel begins.

On Friday, he stood on a gravel-covered portion of the road, which runs next to part of his 400 acres of farmland and a five-strand barbed wire fence. If Cape Girardeau County paves the road, he must move the fence.

"They can go ahead and pave it now, and I'll move the fence when it needs to be moved," he said.

In a folder on the seat of McBryde's truck are documents he is considering taking to a lawyer. The papers amount to the county's end-run around the property owner.

After he refused to re-sign an Aug. 14, 2001, paving agreement, Robb McClary, assistant to the Cape Girardeau County Commission, notarized the document anyway, using McBryde's signature on a voter registration card dated July 7, 1972, to verify the 2001 signature. On April 9, the papers were filed with the county's recorder of deeds. McBryde was unaware of the action until after the fact.

"I just think it's pretty low of county officials that we are supposed to hold in high esteem to do this," McBryde said.

McClary, who has been a notary for a year, copied text about certifying older documents after the fact from a page on the Missouri secretary of state's Web site but didn't directly research state law.

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle met in a closed session with county commissioners Thursday. Afterward, Swingle said nothing illegal was done but that he'll be researching the validity of the easement and what effect it has on the paving plan for County Road 436.

The McBryde easement highlights a divide between the county commission and its road and bridge advisory board over process.

County commissioners created the road and bridge board in 2006 to guide the spending of the half-cent sales tax paid since voters approved Proposition 1 in August of that year. Commissioners retain the responsibility for deciding road issues. The road and bridge board adopted the county's road-paving policy, set in 1999. The policy says the county must have easements signed, notarized and filed with the county's recorder of deeds before a road can be paved.

The road and bridge board set paving priorities based on the county's previous commitments. Earlier this year, the board set a deadline for getting easements signed. Roads without complete easements would fall to the bottom of the priority list.

Commissioners shifted the Feb. 15 deadline to March 28. Even after that, easements were being signed and filed.

Since August, county highway officials and commissioners Bock and Gerald Jones have tried to wrangle a new paving easement from McBryde.

"They done two hitches on this road, and it's not even done yet," McBryde said. "They set a deadline, then they try and get people to sign up after the deadline, when they've got other easements. They've got other roadwork. Something's wrong. The inconsistency thing is what's been upsetting to a lot of people."

The only reason McBryde signed in 2001 is because he "was told I was the last one. Come to find out I was not the last one. I don't know for sure. That still sticks in my craw," he said.

Though a paved road might help if he ever sold his property -- which McBryde said he has no immediate plans to do -- "if you didn't sell it, it would add value as far as taxation," he said.

McBryde has lived in Cape Girardeau County all his life. Now, in what he calls "the so-called country," he says paving can reduce dust and vehicle wear and tear. County Road 436 is just west of and parallel to North High Street in Jackson. After being paved, County Road 436, which is free of traffic signals, will attract "more traffic, traveling at higher speeds," McBryde said.

Commissioner Jay Purcell campaigned for the commission to follow the road and bridge advisory board's easement deadline.

"If we move forward with questionable procedures and practices that contradict and ignore the recommendations of our own road and bridge advisory board," he said, "we will lose the trust of our citizens, and that is something I'm not willing to do."

Larry Payne, the unpaid chairman of the country's road and bridge advisory commission, would like to see County Road 436 paved for safety's sake and for "the needs of other citizens, taxpayers that live on the road."

Until Prop 1 and the advisory board came along, some property owners paid a portion of the cost for having their roads paved.

"The board said, since we have taxpayers' money and a sales tax, we do not believe it is appropriate for anyone to have to pay to move ahead of other taxpayers," he said. "So we stopped that policy."

Payne said he had "no idea why" McClary used the rare process to notarize McBryde's old easement and that while it may be legal, it may not have been moral or ethical.

Though Payne has battled with the commissioners over process, "I'm going to defend them on this. They want to get roads paved," he said. "The final outcome of this whole procedure that we've gone through is that we have a program in effect, adopted, agreed to by everyone in the middle of April, when typically the commission has not made any kind of decision until mid- to late May."

Bids have been advertised and awarded for paving and grading; paving priorities are documented so the work can start as quickly as the weather will allow.

McBryde's easement, Payne said, "is going to cast some doubt in people's minds about our integrity."

McClary compared McBryde's signatures from the 2001 easement and the 1972 voter registration card. He signed a form stating that Scott Bechtold, the county highway administrator and Bock testified that they saw McBryde sign the 2001 easement, which they had signed as witnesses.

McClary said he used the voter card because he knew it was a public record. He said he was unaware of McBryde's July 18 signature on an easement for Citizens Electric Corp.

"I had to find a way to protect the county's interest in the future," McClary said. "... I'm sorry he doesn't like the way it happened. He had plenty of alternatives to make it happen."

McBryde said he hasn't made up his mind about taking papers in the folder to a lawyer.

As for the commissioners, "they can do whatever they want to," McBryde said, picking up the folder. "We've got the paper to prove it."

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127