Questions surround London Road
Posted on Sunday, October 1, 2006
BENTON COUNTY - London Road. London Road. London Road.
Ever since this two-mile-long country road heading north from Twelve Corners Road into Barry County, Mo., got a thick, smooth covering of asphalt in 2005, its name has been on the lips of angry county residents.
They want to know how the rural road - with only a smattering of houses and a destination in another state - could have been catapulted to the top of the list of roads to be paved.
Jeff Wyant thinks he has an idea about why. He thinks it has something to do with the 252 acres Benton County Judge Gary Black owns off London Road. Black's property lies half in Missouri and half in Arkansas. While London Road doesn't border the land, the only entrance to the land is from London Road.
"I'm questioning, after I heard about London Road," Wyant said in a telephone interview. "What an extreme opposite that is from my neighborhood."
Wyant lives on Old Bill Evans Road, a road that - along with Pine Top, Angell and Kirk Hollow roads - leads to the Madison County Water Treatment Plant.
Wyant and other homeowners in the area asked Black at a town hall meeting last spring what it would take to get the steepest, most critical spots of Kirk Hollow Road paved.
Black told them the road was "not on the radar."
There are approximately 50 homes in the neighborhood, and trucks carting chemicals to the water treatment plant add extra wear and tear to the roads and bridges.
"And we're not on the radar ? "Wyant asked incredulously. "Give me a break."
Black is not surprised by the allegations from Wyant and the dozens of other county residents - including his Democratic challenger Joe Chappelle - who have questioned the paving of London Road. But he denies he did anything wrong.
He admits that the paving of the road was of some benefit to him. His property value likely went up and he doesn't have to "eat the dust," but that's not why the road was paved, he said.
"Just because Judge Black has some land out on London Road doesn't mean sic 'em," Black said. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. I wasn't stupid. We just had an opportunity to do it."
Chappelle, who is challenging Black in the November election, used the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act to request all documents pertaining to London Road.
According to those documents, state aid money paid for much of the $ 457, 627 London Road project. The county contributed 10 percent - $ 45, 762. Of the $ 45, 762, $ 14, 000 was donated by residents who live on London Road, including Black.
The State Aid Division was created within the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department in 1973 to administer state and federal funds to counties for road projects.
Each year, the county judge can submit a letter to the state specifying which road or roads he wants to be included in the State Aid program. The amount of funds available to each county varies from year to year.
"The people gave some money. That kind of spurred it on a little bit," Black said of his decision in 2004 to make London Road a state aid project. "Would I do it again ? Yes, I would. I'd do it again in a New York minute because it was the right thing to do."
Chappelle said his big issue with the paving of London Road was that road was not originally slated as a State Aid funded road.
"There's hundreds of miles of road out there that that could have used work before that road," Chappelle said. "That's why I say the ethics of it stink."
Black has said repeatedly that any group of neighbors could follow suit by gathering some money to speed up work on their own roads.
London Road was not on the county's extended road plan, but with help from Black and his neighbors, the road moved up the list.
So Wyant wants to know why none of the roads in his neighborhood are on the radar.
The water treatment plant is slated for $ 1 million worth of improvements next year. And officials from Madison County and the water treatment plant have agreed to pitch in some money to help pave portions of Kirk Hollow Road, which winds in and out of Madison County.
"They are concerned about getting trucks in and out because it is pretty rough in places," said Madison County Judge Wes Fowler.
Fowler met with Benton County Assistant Administrator Travis Harp several months ago about working together on the road.
"I kind of agreed that in principle that we would do something to help out," Fowler said. He tentatively agreed to recommend the road for state aid through Madison County.
"I'm not sure Benton County has the luxury of doing that because there the judge may already have a road plan two or there years in advance," he said. "That's kind of my understanding. They already have their roads that they are going to pave for the next two or three years."
Fowler has not met with Benton County officials since their original meeting.
"It's been some time ago," he said. "There has been nothing since then."
Black said last week that he doesn't know where Kirk Hollow Road stands in the long line of county roads to be paved.
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