Pave this road ! Commission told

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, June 11, 2002

When will my road be paved?

Once again, that’s the question that many Dallas County residents who live on county roads are asking the Dallas County Commission.

Several residents who live on Dallas County Road 407 in White Creek presented the commission with a petition Monday containing 520 signatures, all asking that County Road 407 be paved.

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Chet Dalley, one of the residents, said that a lot of traffic passes through the area, and that when the rain comes the road often becomes muddy, making driving extremely difficult.

“There are a lot of people who are saying that something really needs to be done about our road,” Dalley said. “With the amount of traffic that goes through there we really need to have it graveled and we need to get it paved.”

William Tittle, the owner of Elm Bluff Diner & Sportsman Stop, a shop located on County Road 407, that, among other things, sells fishing bait, told The Times-Journal that the county was also losing a lot of business by not having the road paved.

“So many people who fish in the Alabama River are going to other counties like Wilcox to launch their boats,” he said. “When they drag their boats down here they are afraid, with the condition of the

road, that their boats will be ruined. As a result of that, Dallas County is really losing a lot of business, because these fishermen are spending their money elsewhere.”

Tittle told The Times-Journal that he had spent the past four months collecting the signatures at the shop, asking for the road to be paved.

“This is something that really needs to be taken seriously and not just thrown away,” Tittle said. “We really want the commissioners to understand that we are very concerned about this, and we don’t want it [our petition] just thrown away in the garbage. There are a lot of people here who elect our commissioners, and they [the commissioners] need to know how we feel.”

Several residents, including Tittle, added that a proposal to pave the road had been made approximately 10 years ago, but the commission never went through with the project.

District 1 Commissioner Connell Towns, whose district includes White Creek, said the county lacked the funds to pave the road, but that it could pay the cost of maintaining the road.

Commissioner Roy Moore added, “We [Dallas County] would like to pave the roads, but unfortunately, we just don’t have the money to do it right now.”

Chairman Johnny Jones told the residents that the county would make an effort to look at the condition of the road, and that they would &uot;promise to be there the next time it rained.”

Said Jones, “Right now, unfortunately, this is about all we can do.”

In other business, the commission: