Letter to the Editor
February 24, 2021
Dear Editor,
After reading the story on the front page of last week’s Advertiser regarding the lawsuit filed by Dorman Sturgell, it became obvious that we are experiencing just one more example of government overreach.
I live on a dead end road that is ½ mile long, just northwest of Cassville. When I bought this property, this road was extremely rough, and badly in need of regular maintenance. Because I owned the road, any improvements to be done would be pretty much my responsibility.
I appealed to John Starchman, who was at the time the president of the Flat Creek Road District. When I asked him about getting this ½ mile road taken into the county, he informed me that I first had to get the road up to the required specs before the county would consider it. This included widening the roadbed to a minimum of 18 feet, cutting ditches on both sides and adding a minimum of 2 inches of base rock to the entire length of the roadbed. I would also have to grant the road district an easement 30 feet wide, the full length of the road.
I contacted local excavator Ronnie Sisney and he agreed to do all the work for $4,000. I then spoke with all the property owners living on this road, and all agreed to pitch in and help to pay for the work necessary.
The work was completed, the county approved the road, and a few weeks later it became “farm road 1102”.
I have since learned that several years before I ever bought this property, John Hilburn, who worked for the Flat Creek Road District at that time, occasionally made the effort to grade this road with the county road grader, simply as a courtesy to the residents who lived here. (Keep in mind that this was several years before I bought the place, and at that time the road was private property)
Taking this into consideration, does this mean that the county owned this road long before I took the time to get all that work done? Did the residents on this road invest $4,000 to increase the quality of this road, when actually it was the road district’s responsibility to begin with? According to the standards being put forth in the Sturgell case, that’s exactly what happened.
I grew up in Shell Knob, and we had a lane that went from YY Hwy. down to our house, which was around 3/8 of a mile long. At that time, the state had a stockpile of cold mix asphalt beside the highway where our drive connected to YY. Jenkins resident Joe Hudson ran the grader and mixed this blacktop for the state on a regular basis. But you could bet that once every year or so, he would bring the grader down that lane to our house, cutting out the rougher areas in the lane. No one asked him to do it, he simply did it as a courtesy. Does the state of Missouri now own this 3/8 mile stretch or driveway? Is it now their responsibility to maintain it?
All of us who grew up around here can probably relate to examples just like this which we have witnessed through the years. But when Ed Fink, who was one of the three original road commissioners at that time, states, regarding any work done on the Sturgell property, “He never asked us to, we just did it”, I see no logic in the county attempting to claim this road as “public”.
I honestly think the county commissioners’ time would be much better spent studying the implementation of a “sales tax holiday” in Barry County. Don’t you agree?
Gail Purves
Cassville
Dear Editor,
After reading the story on the front page of last week’s Advertiser regarding the lawsuit filed by Dorman Sturgell, it became obvious that we are experiencing just one more example of government overreach.
I live on a dead end road that is ½ mile long, just northwest of Cassville. When I bought this property, this road was extremely rough, and badly in need of regular maintenance. Because I owned the road, any improvements to be done would be pretty much my responsibility.
I appealed to John Starchman, who was at the time the president of the Flat Creek Road District. When I asked him about getting this ½ mile road taken into the county, he informed me that I first had to get the road up to the required specs before the county would consider it. This included widening the roadbed to a minimum of 18 feet, cutting ditches on both sides and adding a minimum of 2 inches of base rock to the entire length of the roadbed. I would also have to grant the road district an easement 30 feet wide, the full length of the road.
I contacted local excavator Ronnie Sisney and he agreed to do all the work for $4,000. I then spoke with all the property owners living on this road, and all agreed to pitch in and help to pay for the work necessary.
The work was completed, the county approved the road, and a few weeks later it became “farm road 1102”.
I have since learned that several years before I ever bought this property, John Hilburn, who worked for the Flat Creek Road District at that time, occasionally made the effort to grade this road with the county road grader, simply as a courtesy to the residents who lived here. (Keep in mind that this was several years before I bought the place, and at that time the road was private property)
Taking this into consideration, does this mean that the county owned this road long before I took the time to get all that work done? Did the residents on this road invest $4,000 to increase the quality of this road, when actually it was the road district’s responsibility to begin with? According to the standards being put forth in the Sturgell case, that’s exactly what happened.
I grew up in Shell Knob, and we had a lane that went from YY Hwy. down to our house, which was around 3/8 of a mile long. At that time, the state had a stockpile of cold mix asphalt beside the highway where our drive connected to YY. Jenkins resident Joe Hudson ran the grader and mixed this blacktop for the state on a regular basis. But you could bet that once every year or so, he would bring the grader down that lane to our house, cutting out the rougher areas in the lane. No one asked him to do it, he simply did it as a courtesy. Does the state of Missouri now own this 3/8 mile stretch or driveway? Is it now their responsibility to maintain it?
All of us who grew up around here can probably relate to examples just like this which we have witnessed through the years. But when Ed Fink, who was one of the three original road commissioners at that time, states, regarding any work done on the Sturgell property, “He never asked us to, we just did it”, I see no logic in the county attempting to claim this road as “public”.
I honestly think the county commissioners’ time would be much better spent studying the implementation of a “sales tax holiday” in Barry County. Don’t you agree?
Gail Purves
Cassville
