Board discusses Dales Ford Road, potential improvements

Jones County Engineer Derek Snead believes Dales Ford Road northeast of Scotch Grove needs to be addressed.

He said due to poor drainage and thick tree cover, the road is often wet, which leads to road surface degradation.

“There are long stretches where there is no ditch to speak of,” Snead told the Supervisors at their Jan. 13 meeting. “We flew it and did our survey on it last spring … WE already had tow grading projects on that roadway. The southern half-mile has been graded. One was done 15 years ago on the S-curves and we did one five years ago on the (southern) segment.”

Snead said to facilitate those projects, the county acquired right-of-way from private property landowners.

“The section we would look at (for grading next) would be where we finished grading previously and go three quarters of a mile to the north. We picked that out because it has very few property owners … and it’s a fairly straight stretch.”

Snead said clearing out trees and brush in that stretch would not be too labor intensive either.

This plan was met with concern by Michael and Nancy Flynn, whose home is located in the middle of the area the county wants to work on. Their home sits close to the road, and a grove of trees that the Flynns use as a dust break line the roadway.

Snead said to facilitate road work, those trees and accompanying landscaping would need to be cleared.

“That is our barrier from the road and the dust, even though we have dust control put in,” Nancy Flynn told the Supervisors. “So, I would like to see a plan … I’d like to know what we will need to do. Because this is major, and it will devalue out home.”

“The house is 36 feet off the center line, and (the tree line) has dead ash trees, shrubbery and dogwood trees in there. We want to clear that out so we have more room and maybe squeeze in a ditch,” Snead told the Supervisors. “This is why this project has come and gone and started and stopped. We have had multiple landowners who request improvements (to the road) and then others who are not in favor of a project out there.”

Supervisor Jon Zirkelbach said he drove by the property and described the area as a “bottleneck.”

I’ve head calls about the (lack of) vision and people not being able to see and near misses,” Zirkelbach said, adding that he drove the road on Jan. 13. “It was thawing and then the sun doesn’t catch most of it, so it doesn’t dry out … Yesterday the roadbed was basically like driving on a pasture lane. It’s flat, but there are no ditches. There are placed we have done work, but they are basically Band-Aids and not a permanent fix. We need to do something.”

“The least intrusive (work) would be to raise the roadbed,” Snead said. “If we raise the road that ditch elevation doesn’t go quite as deep so it’s less intrusive. We can make small improvements with our crews … it would not be our recommendation to make small improvements, because we are not a fan of making an improvement here and then skipping a spot and then the next area has improvements, so you have good, bad, good, bad.

Board Member John Schlarmann agreed with that assessment and asked if the property owner across the road from the Flynns would be open to the road being realigned onto their land. Snead said he wasn’t sure if that would be amendable to the owners.

The supervisors decided they would schedule a future public hearing for neighbors to voice their support or opposition to any future work on the road.