Hey, Bulloch Commissioners: #AllRoadsMatter

The Bulloch County Board of Commissioners convened early Tuesday afternoon for yet another  meeting before county residents. Chaired by Commissioner Roy Thompson, the agenda was set to take up three conditional usage requests and one condition modification request.

All four requests, from an additional solar panel project to the redevelopment of a building that includes a Sunoco gas station/convenience store that will see a “facelift” and add an office space, were unanimously approved by the Board during the meeting.

Most of the commentary came after those requests, however, as the public section comments section of the agenda saw the most activity. “Roads on ‘that end of the county’ are not being routinely maintained as they should be,” one Statesboro resident added during this portion of the meeting.

Several residents came to the Board of Commissioner’s meeting to express great displeasure with a lack of ditches and paved roads throughout the County. Dink Butler, Bulloch County’s Transportation Director, was faced with a barrage of questions in regard to road conditions in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew and the last storm system to come through.

“We need more routine maintenance on this end of the county,” one Denmark resident said. Another Statesboro resident made mention that “[Bulloch County] needs to do what ever it needs to do to get these roads back in shape because we are tearing up our cars.”

Director Butler gave updates on the progress of maintenance, saying that they have “already initiated repairs on roads that were closed and are working to get those back open,” and when they finish Jim Waters, they will move on to Clifton Road, and G.W. Oliver. They are also currently working with FEMA for reimbursement funding to get these projects complete.

The Commissioners also unanimously approved an intergovernmental agreement with the City of Pembroke that grants them perpetual easement to use Ash Branch Church Road to install a water well that will be installed in Bulloch County, though it will be on private property. The county’s Fire Department will be able to use the water from the well free of charge, but on the flip side, Pembroke won’t be able to sell or provide water to any user outside of their municipality.

The last major content area was brought forth by Chairman Thompson during Staff comments about dump sites. “We can show the County that if we can clean up Rocky Ford, we can do that to the rest of them. And if we can’t, we will shut the rest of them down. It costs just too much money,” he added. Thompson made mention that he decided to close the Rocky Ford dump site earlier last week, as many non-county residents used the location, when they were in fact not supposed to. It reflected a similar occurrence at the other 9 sites as well. He plans to open the site back up on Thursday, February 9 with the intent to start fining illegal trash dumps.