BELLE — City resident Paulette Fricke asked Belle officials to stop a logging truck from traveling on Lehnhoff Drive during the Sept. 16 Board of Aldermen meeting, raising concerns about damage to the roadway and questioning the city’s position that the road is private.

Fricke appeared during citizen participation and told aldermen that she believes the truck traffic is damaging the road and potentially threatening water and sewer infrastructure beneath it.

“There was a logging truck that you were asked to go through on our street,” Fricke said.

She told the board she understood the truck was permitted to travel to the property for maintenance, but objected to it hauling logs along the road. Fricke said the neighborhood is concerned about the weight of the truck and trailer when loaded and what repeated trips could do to the roadway.

“It is breaking our road up,” Fricke told the board. “There’s structure underneath it; the sewer, the water, and we’re afraid that it’s going to cave in.”

She also challenged Mayor James (Pudd) Mitchell over the city’s position that Lehnhoff Drive is a private road. Fricke argued that the city’s history of maintaining the road calls that designation into question.

“If it’s a private drive, why have you been maintaining it?” Fricke asked. “You have been maintaining that since I lived there.”

Fricke also told the board that Mitchell had previously told her that if the logging truck could not use the road, the city could remove trash service from the street. She told aldermen she did not believe that would be fair to residents.

Fricke compared the logging truck with the city’s trash truck, telling the board she had been told a trash truck weighs approximately 42,000 pounds. She characterized trash collection as a necessity while arguing that hauling logs through the neighborhood was not. She estimated the logging truck could weigh between 80,000 and 100,000 pounds when loaded.

Her comments also referenced the variance previously granted for the property. Fricke argued that the authorization was for “one logging truck” and did not authorize loaded log trailers traveling along the street.

“Our neighborhood is tired of Tony (Geick) getting his way,” Fricke said, arguing that commercial truck traffic should not be using the road.

Fricke also alleged favoritism involving the property owner and city officials and questioned Mitchell about his family relationship to the property owner.

Beyond the road surface itself, Fricke said she has noticed what she described as a sewer odor in the area and expressed concern about what could happen to nearby homes if underground infrastructure were damaged.

She told the board that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and representatives from the city of Hermann had recently been in the area for an inspection and requested a copy of any resulting report when it becomes available.

“I’d like to have a report of that when you get there,” Fricke said before concluding her remarks.

Mitchell thanked Fricke for attending, and the board moved on to the next citizen-participation speaker.

The Advocate is conducting a more extensive review of the issues surrounding Lehnhoff Drive, including the road’s status, its maintenance history, the variance allowing a logging truck at the property and questions raised about commercial truck traffic. Those findings will be detailed in an upcoming article.