Mail Bag

Five years of jokes

Posted

I read the article in the Unterrified Democrat a few weeks ago that was covering the Road and Bridge’s five-year plan for the county. To be quite frank, after reading it over a few times and understanding all of the goals they explained, I wanted to smash my head against a brick wall.
The article outlined Osage County Road and Bridge’s Foreman Ron Kempker’s five-year plan for the department, including budgets, road materials, maintenance and road improvements. Kempker pushes for more white rock on the roads and less creek gravel.
If you’ve drove down half our gravel roads you would know that there is minimum material for those road graders to work with. Creek gravel is very cheap to acquire. There are numerous creeks in the county full of rock to be screened out and spread on roads.
Many farmers don’t have the time in their schedule or they lack the equipment to screen themselves. Putting the county in a great position to screen and spread this rock on our roads. White rock is wonderful on our hills where gravel just rolls around and gets washboarded. However, when the county is spreading white rock on flats to fill in potholes and putting material on the road where creek gravel would be superior in that area, is just idiotic.
When you screen out of a quarry and base rock runs anywhere around $7.50-$9.00 a ton, and a tandem truck legally hauls 16 tons average, it is not cost effective to buy that rock just to fill in holes.
Several grader operators have said that the county is over 10 years behind with hauling rock. But if you drive by the county shed those dump trucks are parked most of the year. How can they get anything done or catch back up with road materials for our grader operators when the trucks don’t ever move?
Kempker is more worried about rotating new trucks every few years, but what’s the point in buying new trucks when you don’t utilize the ones you already have. In the springtime the roads are just pure mud and clay when the graders are trying to reshape the roads from winter snow and ice. Creek gravel on those roads would do a world of difference. Then if the department would spend the $180,000 they got budgeted for rock on base rock to do our hills, they would get a long way.
The five-year plan also included safety training and employees becoming more familiar with other pieces of equipment. If these operators are skilled enough to blade and build up and crown a cow path of a county road we have around here, I do believe they can operate those dump trucks, backhoes and skid steers after a few hours of seat time. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to run loaders and trucks compared to a $200,000 road grader.
As far as safety is concerned, I’ve seen highway crews on interstates working with less safety vests and shirts than what I see the county wear. I do not see how wearing a bright orange vest in a grader is going to keep you more safe than a t-shirt does. These guys aren’t working next to a high speed highway or in an extra dangerous environment. The foreman needs to open his eyes and get a brain put on that head of his and actually put time, money and resources on our county roads and not on useless ideas and goals. Our roads needs a lot more attention rather than negligence.
As a whole I would like to see a lot more gravel moved and more brush cutting action happening year round rather than part-time.