Residents of Rosati had a heated discussion with the Phelps County Commission on Aug. 11, urging them to cease the planned closure of the Cardetti Road railroad crossing at County Road 3640 and Route KK.

Rosati residents said they want to see the railroad crossing made safer through the installation of lights, bells, or crossing arms. The County Commission maintains that the crossing is dangerous, repairs are too costly, and made a motion to enter into an agreement with the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) in February 2026 to close it. The contract was finalized in May  2026. As a part of the deal, MoDOT and BNSF Railways will pay the commission a combined $500,000 to close the crossing.

Following a fatal accident at the railroad crossing in December 2022, Gene DeLuca, a Rosati resident, said that he and others from the community approached the Phelps County Commission about making the railroad crossing safer.

The crossing connects the community’s main thoroughfare, Cardetti Road, with Route KK. A MoDOT vehicle counter at the railroad crossing counted 265 average daily vehicle crossings in Rosati. DeLuca said that Rosati residents want a safer, open crossing. Closing the crossing, he said, would cause major issues for residents of Rosati.

“The fire department is going to have to be rerouted, the mail is going to have to be rerouted, plus the school bus is going to have to be rerouted,” DeLuca said, adding that residents would pay more for things like gasoline and fire insurance if their route home was made longer.

Joe Zuppo, a resident of Rosati, said that closing the railroad crossing would cut off the community’s only church, Saint Anthony Church, from its cemetery.

“The church is right there. The cemeteries over there. You’d have to go an extra mile up to (Route) KK, and then go over and hit the south service road and go back. So it’s going to affect a lot of people. But the funeral itself has got to drive two miles further. They’ll have to take a longer route if they close it,” Zuppo said.

J.W. Copeland, a Rosati resident, said, “My family, we use that crossing eight times a day, well over 30 times a week. Even using the county’s time of only two extra minutes, that is over 15 minutes a day and well over an hour every single week. Over the course of a year, that is over 50 hours of added time. This is over 3,500 miles and $700 worth of gas in one year for one family alone.”

Records from the Phelps County Commission show that, for a time, commissioners were looking into installing safety equipment like lights, bells and crossing arms at the Rosati crossing. Commissioners were engaged in talks with MoDOT as early as Aug. 15, 2023, about modifying the crossing in Rosati.

MoDOT Representative Troy Hughes later briefed the Phelps County Commission at an April 2, 2024, county commission meeting, where he said that the process of installing crossing arms and lights at the crossing would cost roughly $400,000 and take one or two years to complete.

Then, in July 2025, Missouri State Rep. Tara Peters secured $500,000 in state funds earmarked for safety improvements for the Rosati crossing. With the safety equipment paid for by the state, the county would have been responsible for at least $25,000 a year in maintenance fees–a cost that Presiding Commissioner Joey Auxier said is too high.

In July 2025, Auxier told the Phelps County Focus, “If they ask the county to do that, I’ll be out, because it will be $25,000 to $35,000 a year to maintain. And I’m not doing that. We don’t have that in the budget.”

According to County Commissioner Sherry Stites, engineers tasked with evaluating the safety of the crossing and the feasibility of installing equipment determined that doing so would be costly and impractical.

“We looked at doing lights. We looked at doing arms. We looked at expanding the lane. You can’t do it. There’s no way to solve any of it. And those engineer reports showed that. So the only other option that we had was to close it. And I said, well, this is going to be a hot mess,” said Stites.

According to Phelps County Commission records, on Feb. 17, Stites moved to enter into a contract with MoDOT to close the crossing “due to reports from engineers with MoDOT and BNSF and due to the county not being able to cover the costs associated with maintenance” if the crossing was kept open with safety equipment. County Commissioner Gary Hicks seconded, and the motion was carried. Stites and Hicks voted in favor entering the agreement with MoDOT. Auxier did not vote.

Records from an earlier Dec. 11, 2025,  Phelps County Commission meeting said that “once the proposal is received from MoDOT then a public meeting will be held at Rosati to put it to a vote of the people.”

A public meeting in Rosati and vote of local residents was never held. A public hearing for Rosati residents was scheduled for the March 5 at the County Commission meeting in Rolla, 16 days after they already approved to enter a contract with MoDOT to close the railroad crossing. Phelps County Commission records indicate that, while the commission motioned to enter a contract to close the crossing in February, the closure contract was officially entered on May 26.

Rosati residents feel that not enough was done to inform them about the March 5 public hearing. Phelps County Commission meeting agendas are not posted online, but are posted on the door of the courthouse at least 24 hours before the meeting in question, according to Clerk Laura Johnson.

Steve Zuppo said residents in Rosati weren’t aware of the public hearing regarding the railroad crossing closure.

“How can you show up when you don’t know about it?” Zuppo said.

Of the March 5 public hearing, DeLuca said no one was aware.

“Nobody knew about it,” DeLuca said. “I mean, not anybody that cared, I guess. It should have been done right. And if it was done right, we would have had our say a long time ago.”

Copeland said it wasn’t done correctly.

“In the December 11, 2025, meeting, (the county commission) voted to put it to the people, and then the commission somehow tried to claim that the March 5 meeting was the scheduled public hearing, which is questionable at best and illegal at worst,” Copeland began. “But this date is after the commission had already voted to enter a contract with MoDOT.”

When asked if the county commission wishes more had been done to inform the Rosati community about the public hearing, Auxier said yes.

“I wish we would have told them sooner because the fun we’ve had today should have lasted way longer,” Auxier said. “Well, I do wish we would have informed them sooner.”

Stites said people initiated it and should have stayed on it.

“The reason why I did not do that, and maybe I should, is because they’ve been aware of this going on because they initiated it. So when do you take accountability? If you initiate something, don’t you stay on task of it?”

Hicks said, even if there was more public input, it likely wouldn’t have changed her decisions.

“I probably would have made the same decision because there’s another crossing, Hicks said.

County commissioners said now that they are aware the crossing is unsafe, they have a duty to public safety to close it. 

“The public safety far outweighed this,” Hicks said.  “I think we made the right decision with the information we had.”

Stites agreed.

“I don’t disagree that you don’t have an inconvenience when that’s closed,” Stites said. “The shameful part about it is it probably should have been closed a long time ago, so that life wasn’t lost. I can’t renegotiate public safety. They started that bus all based on public safety. And now they don’t want to accept accountability. They want me and Gary (Hicks) and Joey (Auxier) to turn our heads.”

Rosati residents argued that, with just one train-related fatality in over a century, the Rosati railroad isn’t so unsafe that it should be closed altogether, given its importance to the community.

Copeland said the crossing was utilized, but not necessarily safe.

“For well over 100 years, people have used this crossing safely, and now due to one tragic accident and two studies with questionable ties to the railroad, it is deemed unsafe and action must be taken. But only after money changes hands, of course.”

Zuppo added that one death in 100 years doesn’t necessarily point to a safety concern.

“We’ve had one death in well over 100 years,” he said. “So this stuff about safety, it’s all a lie, and whoever’s saying it’s for safety is a liar, because one death does not show that it’s unsafe and that you have to shut it down.”

According to Auxier, there is no exact timeline for closing the crossing. The Phelps County Commission is still waiting on a check from MoDOT before they move forward with the road closure.

“MoDOT said they would cut the check early this month, and we haven’t seen anything yet,” Auxier said.

Stites said the county commission has to wait for money from MoDOT.

“Because you have to have the funding to do it. The other thing is, you specifically have to plan it to do with the State also, so we have to get with MoDOT,” Stites said.

Residents of Rosati expressed that, if installing safety equipment is not possible, they want the Phelps County Commission to back out of the contract with MoDOT and leave the railroad crossing just as it was, rather than simply close it.

Copeland said commissioners should listen to the residents.

“If your position is being solely justified by the claim that you care too much about kids while disregarding the voices and needs of the community, then you should reconsider whether you can continue to serve on this commission,” Copeland said. “A vote to close is selling us out to the railroad, plain and simple, and you have chosen the interests of the corporation over the people you swore to serve.”

Zuppo suggested leaving everything the way it is.

“Why can’t we just go back in time and act like no one ever complained and forget about any of this ever happened?” Zuppo asked. “And you guys leave us alone and leave our crossing alone.”