Commission discusses Drywood Township road

Saturday, January 23, 2016
Drywood Township board member, John Zoglmann speaks to the commissioners about issues with his township's road, South 1755. He told Neal Gerster (seated) the road is undrivable. Noah Jones/Daily Mail

Nevada Daily Mail

During the Vernon County Commission's scheduled meeting about road and bridge issues Tuesday, the commissioners spoke to a Drywood Township board member about his concerns with a township road.

John Zoglmann was called into the commissioner's office from the courthouse lobby as the commissioners discussed Daniel Laning -- another Drywood Township board member -- and his requests for the commissioners to take a look at South 1755, an outer road along Highway 71.

Zoglmann said within the township's section of the road, there is a half-mile stretch that is in bad shape. The outer road's condition is riddled with enough holes for Zoglmann to not use the road anymore, he said urging the commissioners to go out and see for themselves.

"The road needs a lot of work," Zoglmann said urging the commissioners to go and see the road. "Its got holes in it that are terrible. It's a mess."

In Vernon County, the townships maintain roads, and it is up to the individual townships to maintain and repair roads, presiding commissioner Joe Hardin said.

"It's the townships responsibility to maintain the roads once they become a township road," Neal Gerster, Vernon County's northern commissioner said after the meeting. "At what point did the township take that road, is his question. And he said he wasn't going to take that road until it's up to their standards. It won't stay at their standards if they don't maintain it."

Gerster said originally the outer roads were maintained by the state, with the expectation of townships taking the roads maintenance over from the state.

"How that road there is the only road that got conveyed to a township, I don't know," he said. "Some of [the roads in Drywood township] are still state maintained, and my personal feeling is they all should be."

According to Angela Eden, senior communications specialist with Missouri Department of Transportation's southwestern district, the state roads in Vernon County are marked with letters such as Highway BB or Highway AA, or the roads are major routes like Route 54 or Interstate 49. Townships maintain the "oddly numbered roads," she said. Often, people make the mistake of coming to MoDOT to request maintenance on roads it no longer has jurisdiction over.

"Sometimes people get frustrated with the counties or the communities or townships and they come to us thinking we have statutory authority over the roads, but we have none," Eden said. "Our only authority is to inspect bridges because we have engineers."

Eden said the authority to inspect did not equal the authority to close the bridges, but rather to recommend to communities to make repairs based off of engineering principals.

Gerster said because townships maintain roads, there is little the commissioners are able to help with. He said the commissioners budgeted $170,000 this year for townships. The money is distributed equally among the 20 townships giving each township $8,500 to spend on road maintenance. The funding comes from the County Aid Road Trust inside of the special road and bridge fund.

"We'll just have to go look at it. [Zoglmann] may throw some gravel towards it to soothe their minds. But when he does, I want that in writing because right now we have nothing. Just him saying its been conveyed to the county, which makes it a township road."

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