Road district nears dead end

When Butch Heisserer and Jack Hamm drive Heisserer's old blue pickup along roads in the Illmo Special Road District in Scott City, they see something different than the district's commissioners.

Where commissioners Bob Keesee and Bill Zimmerman see roads that aren't perfect but good enough for safe travel, Heisserer and Hamm see roads with dangerous curves and breaking pavement.

A third road commissioner, Dale Schlosser, declined to comment.

To Heisserer and Hamm, these problems are so bad they want to disband what they see as a mismanaged road district. They say commissioners put money into pet projects instead of what's good for the district's taxpayers. The men have circulated a petition to place a measure on the April ballot to dismantle the district and put it under the authority of Scott County government.

The petition worked, with 75 valid signatures of district residents -- residents the men say aren't just their friends and relatives, a claim made by the road district commissioners. A simple majority is needed to disband the district.

"They'd do a lot better job of keeping it up," Hamm said of the county government. "And they'd be able to bring in more money in grants."

The Old Illmo Special Road District has 29 miles of roads stretching to the Mississippi river on the east, the county border on the north, Interstate 55 on the west and nearly to Commerce on the south. The district has an annual budget of $100,000 or less and employs one full-time worker and a part-time secretary, Keesee said. Some of those roads fall within the city limits of Scott City.

"You can't fall asleep on these roads," Hamm said as the truck moved along Thursday. He was talking about the bumps in the country roads, bumps he said shouldn't be there.

"They don't know what they're doing," Heiserrer said. "They don't know how to pave and they don't know how a gravel road should be graded."

Into the ditches

The ditches along the roads aren't properly cleared, they say, causing water to gather on the pavement, breaking up the blacktop long before it should due to weathering, especially in the cold of February.

Commissioners respond that they keep the ditches as clear as possible while having to deal with telephone lines along the road.

Heisserer doesn't live within the district boundaries, but he does own some property in it. When he compares the part of his property that's serviced by Scott County to the part that's serviced by the special district, he sees a big difference.

The special district's commissioners say Hamm and Heisserer are really just playing out a personal battle.

"All this boils down to a personal vendetta against me," said Keesee, a commissioner on the road district for six years.

Each side can take the same stretch of road and tell a different story about its condition.

One example is part of County Road 307, just outside Scott City. It ends at a cow pasture that belongs to Heisserer's family. The road is rough, marked with potholes and a sharp, narrow curve at the bottom of a hill.

Heisserer sees a road that has been neglected, that the road district has refused to repair. Commissioners Keesee and Zimmerman see County Road 307 as one of their next big projects, and say what Heisserer really wants is a paved road that leads out to the pasture, where no one lives.

This spring, Keesee said, the road will be widened at the curve and repaved, but only to the last driveway on the stretch, not to the pasture. The road district can't do everything at once, with only one full-time worker, Zimmerman said.

"We've already fixed the washout on that road," Zimmerman said.

Some residents side with the commissioners.

"We'd have worse service if they got rid of it," said Richard Roth, who lives on Roth Drive, one of the roads serviced by the special district. "Every road could be better, but they do what they can."

Roth said he's voting to retain the district in April.

Heisserer and Hamm maintain the commissioners are playing favorites. They take a drive down County Road 308 next to the Mississippi River. The blacktop is new, but there are only five residences on the road -- a waste of money and clear example of abuse of office, they say.

Keesee's family does own property on the short stretch of road, he said, but that's not the reason for the fresh pavement.

"The high water gets over that road every year and it leaves about four inches of mud," he said. "We got to be out a couple of thousand dollars every year to rerock that road. And blacktop, all you have to do is take a road grader and grade that road off, it don't cost nothing."

The petitioners also claim Keesee has engaged in nepotism, buying land from his son, Monty, on which to build the district's work shed. Keesee said he abstained from voting on the purchase due to a conflict of interest, and that his son sold the land for bottom-dollar, saving the special district thousands of dollars by paying half the market value for the tract.

"It's the best location in town, it's centrally located," Keesee said.

But until April, when voters decide whom they believe, accusations from both sides will likely continue.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182