Potholes on unpaved road an issue in River Heights
November 18th, 2013 Posted in OpinionRIVER HEIGHTS — Residents Morgan and Anna Lisa Davidson went to the City Council meeting Tuesday to participate in a public hearing about Riverdale Road, on which they lived. Before the hearing they used the scheduled public comment time to tell the council that their road was not being maintained.
Riverdale Road is small, unpaved and, according to Morgan Davidson, in need of fixing. He said there are potholes in the road and it is dangerous to drive on or to even walk on it. “My daughter, she’s disabled, she has this little tricycle that we got her and she has ridden it exactly once,” Davidson told the council, “because she went out there, fell into a pothole and face-planted into the road.”
Clayten Nelson, public works supervisor, said the problem wasn’t that the city didn’t want to fix the potholes or take care of the road but that they couldn’t.
“Last winter we had the bat go down there, scraping and filling potholes,” Nelson said. “We were asked to leave.” Nelson said one resident, who was not named, opposed his crew filling potholes and threatened them with a lawsuit if they were to continue.
Davidson said the person who threatened the city workers believes the potholes help keep people from driving too fast down the road. Davidson said, while the person is entitled to their opinion, they shouldn’t be hindering necessary repairs. “I think the issue of having one resident out of many creating a hubbub so nothing gets done seems like a failure of the democratic system,” he said.
Mayor Bill Baker said the public hearing, which took place after the public comment portion of the council meeting, would fix the issue. Baker said the hearing was about a petition signed by most of the Riverdale residents to have the city grade and plow the road and for the city to “remove the covenant that any improvements to that road is paid for by the people in that area.”
Related story: River Heights council gets earful on Riverdale Road
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Tags: city council, Clayten Nelson, Morgan Davidson, potholes, River Heights, Riverdale Road
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