Highway Commission - Regular Meeting

Now agreeing.

All right. I will call the May meeting of the Coffey County Highway Commission to order. We've taken roll. Everyone is here besides Jeff. Bush couldn't make it today. We have no guests and no other people here. Next, we need to approve the agenda.

Make a motion to approve.

Motion by Arliss. Second. Second by Ms. Carolyn to approve the agenda as printed. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, like, sign. Well, we have approved the agenda. No public comments. And now we need to look at last month's meetings. Approve last month's meetings. Everyone should have a copy.

As written.

Got a motion by Arliss to approve Ms. Renton. Second. Second by Ms. Carolyn. All in favor of approving last month's minutes as printed, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, lock sign. The minutes have passed. I'll let Ms. Carolyn catch up. Have no unfinished business. All right. Now we will move into new business. I guess since we'll put it on the record, I talked to Jeff, wasn't able to be with us, but he brought up C. Anderson Road. So we can put that in the minutes. Jeff did bring the C. Anderson needs some attention.

That's where the utilities dug up at the end of the road?

Yeah. Yeah.

They had a big water leak there.

Okay. Right there. I haven't been out that way, but that's what Jeff said. So you know what? I think Benton already knew.

They dug there and then left, and they've had to come back because we've seen a water leak.

Yeah.

Did the other company have any effect on that? Probably. That's what some of the residents thought.

Yeah. All right. Benton, I can start with you and JoJo, and y'all can get us updated.

All right, we got the mowing underway. It's the sixth. We've had pretty good luck. There's a breakdown here and there with nothing serious.

As you're switching the routes, is that working out? Yeah, that's working out fine. Pretty good.

Yeah, it's a little rocky at first, but everybody's settling in. I guess we got one that's off track a little bit. It's a new guy. His lead man's tractor broke down, so he's been out there He's a little, he's got jumped around just a little bit, but we'll get you back on track tomorrow.

Is that the young kid?

No, he's a, no, it's a Bobby, I can't think of his last name. We just hired him this spring. He's doing a real good job.

He's running a tele-home around.

He's running a side mower, so he'll have to catch up on the outside of the ditch here a little bit.

The guys that came through, Around us, they did a good job.

Yeah, I think they've been out here before.

Okay. Yeah.

So they knew it pretty good.

Yeah.

But we're having pretty good luck with them. Yeah, sure are. I brought you guys a paving list this time. And we've had our wheels rusted out on our paver. I don't know if it's where they had calcium in the tires or what, but... I've had two wheels ordered, and they're still coming, but it's going to be another month. So we finally just put a tube and a liner in there and got it going. So hopefully we can start paving next week. Does that sound right? Yep. We've got several roads already, shoulders pulled on them, and they're ready to pave. We just had a little trouble with that paver that we weren't expecting, but we've We've got that kind of under control now. On your pavement list you'll see, everybody's got a copy. We're gonna kind of start out in Beech Grove and work our way toward Hillsboro. And we're gonna finish out the season in Hillsboro. There are several roads out there that could use a little help in Hillsboro. And we're gonna try to get all of them that we can. These lists are always longer than what we can actually do, but we don't want to run out of anything. So the Beach Grove area is not a whole lot of miles, probably somewhere around three. And Manchester's probably got four, maybe, three or four. And then Shady Grove at Petty Road is going to be... That's about two.

Yeah, but we probably won't get the... We'll get most of it.

And we will do probably chip seal what we don't cold mix.

How much of Gerald are you planning to do?

We're going to do all of Gerald. And then Andy Lane and New Union and Hodge Road. Hodge Road, we put a cul-de-sac at the end of it. and we're hoping to get some chip seal on it. Something about some property getting divided back there. We had to put a cul-de-sac at the end of that road. It didn't have one. It needed one. So there's been one there now for a couple of years, and we just need to put some.

What is the name of that road again?

Hodge, H-O-D-G-E.

It's off of Goose Pond.

Thacker Road and Copper's Creek, Thacker Road goes from the Hawkersmith Road to the base, and it's got a place or two that always has trouble, and so we're going to go ahead and fix that. Copper's Creek, they built a big subdivision at the end of it. Got a lot of pine trees pushing the roots going up under the road and pushing the road up, so it's got that road tore up pretty good, that and the traffic. So we're gonna try to straighten it out a little bit. We're not gonna spend a lot of money on Copper's Creek because there's still a lot of building to go and we'll try to fix it permanent once some of that building gets done.

It's a short.

Yes.

It's about less than half a mile, I guess. Yeah, like .30 of a mile. I've never even heard of it. I can't tell you where that is. Tallahama.

It's off of Welker Lake Road. Okay. It's real close to the Georgia Dickel up there. Smead. Smead. It's real close to Smead. Okay.

Is that one of the ones that's crossways right there at Smead?

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Yeah. It's down over Welker Road about, I don't know,

I mean half a mile, three-quarters of a mile.

It goes off to the left. In Hillsboro, we've got Wembley, Coles, Deanshop, just a lot of little – those roads are getting to see a lot of traffic, and they're getting beat up a little bit.

Deanshop, that's all the way – that's the county line all the way to the hill. Yeah.

Yeah, so – We might as well go over there. Yeah, go from – yeah. They're all close. Yeah.

But that's what we got down from paving this year. Like I say, we always put more down than what we can probably do. But we're going to try our best to get them off.

Now the oil prices.

Oil prices hadn't really moved a lot on there. As a matter of fact, they – We're doing bids on rock and paving and our oil that we use for coal mix and our chip seal. And everybody has most, all of them, except for paving, has went ahead and extended their bid. So oil is not, the oil we use in that asphalt is kind of waste, or I shouldn't say waste, but they don't use that for... refining gas or diesel.

Is there anything going on you can't fuss about?

No. It's got a lot of asphalt in that oil, so they don't even try to refine it. I don't want to say they don't try, because they do try. And they've got a lot more. They're using a lot more of that than they ever have, so that's made it go up. But, you know, it's...

That's good on your rock bed and all that, not going, yeah.

Yeah, rock's not going to go up this year, doesn't look like it. They've all got to, if it goes over 5%, I think they can index and get more money if they have to.

What is the going rate on that rock?

Oh, it's all, we've got about 10 different things priced, and it's all different prices. Okay. cheapest this crusher run and the most expensive is probably the chips we use on chip sale, but I can't recall the prices right off hand. Probably ought not tell anyway because some people might not be getting the same price as we are. We don't start anything. But anyway, that saying being said, the paving's gonna be a big thing for us in the next few months. and mowing and that's probably about all we're going to get to do. We're getting a lot of tile still and we've got a few of those to put in still and you know on rainy days or sometimes if it gets real busy we'll take a day off every once a week or so to put in tile but our main goal the next month is paving and mowing and we're going to try to Do as much of that as we can. And that's about all we got lined up for this next coming month. If y'all see anything on that paving list that needs to be changed, well, we'd like to know about it. If you hear anything from you folks in your districts, let us know.

You've got the ones that I've been hearing the most about.

Yeah, yeah. That's all I got. Joe Joe's got a few things.

You did some striping.

Yeah, we did some striping. We got bragged on a little bit on our striping out behind North Coffee School, but that definitely needed done. It was hard to tell where the traffic was supposed to go. We got that striped a couple years ago late in the year, and it kind of wore off pretty quick, so.

That's the worst thing about that strap. It don't last like it.

No.

For what it costs, it don't last like it. That's why I've had several people say, why don't they strap everything? I was like, the cost, and they just don't, it don't last like it.

No, it's, yeah, you go broke strapping.

Those guys did a good job. They did stop bars and everything. I mean, it looks really good. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the worst thing with those. Yeah. For one, it's expensive, and.

Yeah, that's who you need to really brag on, those folks that did that striping. They did a good job. We kind of showed them kind of what we wanted, but they took it from there and did an excellent job.

Volunteer, do it, or?

Yeah. Yeah. Out of Cookport or Crossford? Crossford. Crossford, yeah. Anything else, Joe?

We've started spraying. know some poison around guard rails and signs and it was hard to get areas for mowing like he said our driveway tiles was picked up 20 or 30 percent probably i'd say he's put in i guess 20 tile in the last few weeks driveway tiles yeah it's picked up a lot mostly new construction or yeah yeah mostly

He can usually put in there for a day if it's, don't have, you know.

And Fred Lusk, we went out there and cut out some bad spots and redid the base and filled it up to the top with hot mix. We've been back to check on them a couple times. They're holding up pretty good. That road sees a lot of dump trucks coming from that quarry up on the mountain.

We got to digging in there and found some, moist dirt that we went ahead and dug it out and backfilled with Crusher Run and then Pug Mix and then I think we used E-Mix, didn't we? To fill the holes in with. Grundy County's gonna pave their part. Part of that road is Grundy County's part of it's ours and if they get, we're hoping, if they get to do their part, we'll try to do ours At the same time, the only thing that's going to mess us up there is if we don't have the same asphalt contract. So we've got Rogers Group's got our contract, or they do right now. Like I said, we're at paving. That contract's coming up for bid, I think, June 30th. is when somewhere along in there is when it's getting bid. So that's the only bid that didn't get extended. See stone, striping, guardrail, paving. The paving didn't get extended. They're going to re-bid it, so we'll see. And we got another road, I guess, in Tallahoma. Short Springs. Got the same one. We meet the city, and it goes in and out of the city two or three times. Short Springs.

Mm-hmm.

So we're hoping we can get that one. Hot mix.

Hot mix.

That one Fred loves.

It may be card black.

If we got enough money. If we got enough money.

Right, right. What are you going to do with that again? I didn't. Short springs.

Hot mix. Hot mix. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's a hot mix row.

Thank you.

And, yeah, they've been doing a bunch of, shoulder work all the roads that we're going to pave they've got all he's got all of them done in hillsboro and he went on to crawford we're going to pay crawford half of it and now he's in beach grove he just finished up in beach grove shoulder and all them roads yeah we had to carry uh it was over 20 loads of shot rock to possum paw At the very end of it, a creek down there was washing underneath the road. Some of it fell in, so we had to fix those spots. Because they're starting to build back there in the very end, you know, where Tank Driver used to live.

Oh, really? That's all?

There's building up in there now? Oh.

Oh, yeah.

What, a subdivision or something? No, just houses. Lots. Didn't know all that sold.

They got about three up there now. One big one on the other side of the road and About three or four.

If y'all know where Tink's place was. Yeah, at the end. They just built a pad for a house right there.

On the left side.

Yeah. And then on the right side of the creek, there's a big old house that's already built. And then they're stacking up all the way back towards the highway. There's five lots down there for sale now, empty lots, right when you turn on the possum pile. Five-acre lots. Five-acre lots. So it's gonna see some traffic.

And that's the, I tell people that's the worst thing is a road that they used to not, when it was built, designed, had probably very little traffic.

Yeah. Well, Paulson and Paul, all it had was tank on it, wasn't it? I mean, there wasn't no other houses on there.

There's still a lot of traffic going back there, though.

Yeah, it used to be.

Yeah. But that's the thing is that some roads, you know, when they were designed, there wasn't.

Yeah, tar and chip roads wasn't designed for.

And then they had one, you know, you said, You could have one or two people, you know, and now it changes.

There was a lot of different vehicles back when some of those roads were built, too.

Nothing as big as they got now. Right, yeah.

One of the roads that still comes to my attention this past week, people that live down there on Bashaw, when it's curved, you know, and it's slick, And the guy that I was talking to has that big gate in front of his place there. And he said at night you can hear people, you know, the brakes.

Oh, yeah.

But anyway, I told him I'd mention it.

Going downhill?

Mm-hmm, going downhill around that curve.

It's shaded in there, and it gets a, I don't know what you call it.

It's moss growing on it.

Yeah, moss.

He just needs a lot, doesn't he? Like some.

That's one of our busiest roads in the county.

Yeah, it is. A shortcut.

And to be a tar and chip road, we hardly ever have to go out there and do any work, potholes or anything. I mean, that road's in good shape.

Yeah. You got anything else, Joe?

Just our storms that we had, you know, 417, 418. We had two or three days of cleanup after those. I had eight roads with trees over them and We work a little overtime. That's about it.

Thank you all for all you do. You all stay on top of it pretty good. I can't brag enough about you. Are they getting anything, Ms. Carolyn?

Do you see there any hope for any kind of improvement on Schaefer? You know, like that big area there, you know, when you turn on... That pothole that we've got?

No, that's Pea Ridge.

That big... Well, you worked on this, too, where Mr. Weiser lives, where they live there.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we broomed all that loose rock off.

Mm-hmm. And then there's quite a bit that's edged out on that road, you know, pretty deep, you know, around the curve.

On the shoulder?

Of course, one thing that's going to help is the slop trucks.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're not running no more.

Mm-mm. Well, that's going to make a big difference, I think.

Me and Benton can look at it.

In that area. Yeah. Thank y'all.

Yep.

Anything else?

Well, if you run out and have a little extra or anything, you just come at the top of Hill Graveyard.

Oh, yeah. You rode. I rode down it the other day.

Well, see, we could have looked at that.

Yeah.

I appreciate all the time.

I was looking at Tim's entrance to his driveway there. You know, you had mentioned it.

Yeah.

You got anything else? There's a couple of little things to mention here. The Shade Grove Road there, where the pine trees there, where Lee and Anderson, all them live, next to that airport and all them tires.

Yeah.

I noticed it had completely crumbled there around over them tree roots.

We dug them tree roots up. It probably needs topped.

Okay, so y'all dug them up and just re-graveled it.

Well, we dug them up and put gravel in it, and we was going to come back and do some patch, but we haven't patched yet.

Okay, all right. So you're all over it then? Well, no, I forgot about going back and patching it, to be honest with you. Okay, okay. Well, I was just going to tell you, You know, it don't have enough gravel right now. I just didn't know why. I'm glad you dug them roots out because that was pretty rough. And then, and I know this will be for the fall or whatever, when you get back to shoulder work, is Maple Springs still on the list for shoulder, putting gravel on the shoulder?

I've got some places wrote down where we need to fix it.

Yeah, well, it's not what I'm talking about. It's just doing the gravel, the gravel on the side. There's several places there where you know, you drop off the edge of the asphalt, you're, you're in bad shape.

Yeah, we got a shoulder machine now.

But yeah, I knew since we had this older machine, we can get that back on that list. And that may give that road a little more longevity too. A lot of traffic.

That's all I got. Somebody brought up the other day and I never thought about it and I don't know what it would take to get it done because it's on the base property. Miller's Crossroads hits whatever, Wadendorf, whatever it is. If it's wide enough there to put in an extra lane for people turning right and left, because what the complaint was, like at times when the base is going in and out, you've got people that are using middle crossroads and trying to go in the base, well, that backs up, and even if you're trying to turn right, you get, you know what I mean? I had no idea. That's on 127? No, on 127. Miller's crossroad. Miller's crossroad actually in the base. That's on base property. I don't know what, you know.

So you've got some people wanting to go straight.

What happened, what somebody told me, we were just in conversation and talking, and again, I've done it before too, but I mean, most of the time when, I try not using that when ARL is letting in and out. What it is, he said, it's bad about, especially in the morning times, you've got people that are going to the base coming up Miller's Crossroads. They're trying to turn left. You know what I mean? It backs up. So if you want to turn right to go to the interstate, it backs up where you can't even turn right. We said if you went and put a, you know what I mean, just a little where you could go around the people that are trying to turn left in the base. Again, that's on base property. I didn't know what all, you know, I guess the base would have to.

I've got a contact out there. I'll see if I can see what he says about it.

I know at times it has to be, because there's a world of traffic. Well, anybody coming from... If you work at the base and you live in Pelham up on the mountain, because I see them all the time, because I use Bessie Willis. You take Bessie Willis, Prairie Plains, and run Miller's Crossroad. So I can imagine at times... Trying, you know, and it's so tight there. You know, it would be nice if Miller's Crossroads went straight in there to use the red light. It does aggravate me when you've got a red light. No, but I said, I don't know what could be done, but I said, you know, I could at least bring it up. And so, again, I know it's base property, and so I know that.

Yeah, we couldn't do anything on our own out there at all.

Yeah.

I can't think of that fellow's name right offhand, but I've got his phone number there. I'll call him.

Like you said, the person that brought it up said, you know, if you just had a, you know, for a 50-foot or whatever, just where you get, you know, if you were turning, you know, want to go towards the interstate, you could not have to wait, you know, to try to turn left. I thought it made sense when, you know.

Instead of stopping there where we quit, I called this guy and, Asked him if we could go ahead and pay to Watendorf.

Yeah.

Of course, he was all for it.

Right.

But, you know, I felt like I had to make sure.

Right. Yeah, that's what, I know that.

It'd be the same thing on this deal.

Yeah. I know that's the tricky part when you're right there with his youth.

Maybe he'll return the favor and do the turn lane.

Yeah. Yeah.

Nothing like that's ever easy.

Right. That's what, again, when we were in conversation, we got talking about it, and I said, well, I can bring it up and get the, if something can be done, because it does make sense.

We can put the bug in there.

Right. Because, I mean, there's a world of traffic that comes down the middle of Crossroads. Yeah. Well, anybody that works, again, like I said, if you work at the base and live in Pelham, most of the time that's how you. And it's probably got a little worse right now. especially with the bridge there across the interstate with it being messed up. So you got people that may have used to take the interstate are now using, you know, Miller's Crossroads. So that's all I had. And again, y'all, I stand on top of it pretty good. Yeah. I've had several people say this in conversation, you know, if something comes up, y'all seem like y'all own it pretty fast and y'all do it. Yeah, we appreciate it. Can't brag enough about how many people.

We appreciate y'all bringing this stuff to our attention.

Yeah. And our patch guys. Our patch guys have been pretty much on top of all the holes here lately.

Yeah.

You know, since we ain't been paving.

Yeah.

Yeah. So they're doing a good job. Yeah. All of our guys are doing a good job.

Yeah. We've got some real talent out there, that's for sure.

But I will, I mean, every time the guys are out my way, I work and I'll stop and talk to them just a second. And I'll give them credit. It seems like they really stay on looking and driving around and paying attention and catching the little things before they're up. A problem, yeah. So I can't say enough about what I see, that they do a good job of catching the problems before they're a big problem.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah.

And they expect you to bring it to the meeting.

Yeah.

That's what we're supposed to do.

So they, yeah. I can't brag about you guys enough. Any other?

We don't want you expecting it.

Anything else? Anybody got anything else? Our next meeting date. June 3rd. Yeah, June 3rd at 3 o'clock here. If nothing else, I will take a motion to adjourn.

Well, we could say, you know, we got bent for another four years. Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah. We're happy for that.

I don't know about everybody's happy, but I am.

And Arliss. Yeah, and Jeff don't have, Jeff running independent don't have any competition, but you're right.

What are you going to say about me?

Miss Carolyn's still got one more.

Miss Carolyn's got one more round to go, but. Yeah. Yeah.

Y'all got to help Matt and people you know in District 5.

Yep. Motion by Arliss. You'll second the motion to adjourn?

Second.

All in favor of adjourning, say aye. Aye. We'll adjourn until June.

I really appreciate y'all very much.