Horsefly Buzzings Road Money

Horsefly Buzzings: Who’s getting road money?

By Jerry Couey
March 21, 2007

I was just wondering and I would like you all to Buzz along with me.

My belief is that all government’s efforts, using our tax dollars, should be aimed at the majority rather than the minority.

For example if government has some extra money and the choice is a nine space parking lot or repaving a road that has 175 houses, I would think that we should re-pave the road with 175 houses on it.

I realize that I am just a simple horsefly, but doesn’t that make sense to you, too?

And maybe we should consider having less employees working for government, which would free up our tax dollars to benefit the maximum number of citizens. Of course the government has told me to Buzz off before so what do I know.

Two weeks ago on the County agenda was a proposal to pave a dirt road. I thought to myself, "that’s good because there are so many people who have paid taxes for years and they deserve something from the county."

I decided to research the proposed road-paving project.

The name of the road is Molino Bridge Road. I Buzzed over to the property appraisers web page to take a look.

I was surprised to find that there are only TWO houses on this road.

How could that be...certainly there are other dirt roads with more than two houses?

I decided to go to the commission meeting and ask a couple of questions.

My first question was, "how many feet are we going to pave?"

After a long silence I was told, "that the number is not in front of us."

My first thought was, "a several thousand-dollar project but no one knows the length?"

Seemed odd to me but often I see things voted on with little information available.

My second question was, "how many houses are on that road?"

The answer to that question was what I had found in my research, TWO.

I had my most of my answers (hey, one out of two is 50%) so I decided to leave.

Of course the road in question was in Commissioner Salter’s district so as I was walking out, the defense of that project began. I just did not have it in me to stay any longer. Also my guess is that I would soon be yelled at for asking a question.

My point here is that road paving seems to have become very political as of late. I haven’t Buzzed every dirt road in the county but I could almost bet that there are many that have more than two houses on them.

Now I can get to the point of my Buzzing. It seems to me, and there are other commissioners that agree, that there are inequities in how road monies are allocated.

I would like to see an effort made to first maintain roads and then make a serious effort to pave dirt roads -- prioritized with the number of houses as one of the guides.

Back to my original point that government should always strive to help the most people with the dollars available. In this case I would have to say that there could have been better projects for this expenditure.