An opinion handed down by the Mississippi Attorney general’s office says Oktibbeha County can’t direct the road department to fix roads on private property.
In the letter sent to Attorney general Jim hood’s office, the board said there are several private roads and driveways utilized by county emergency responders when answering emergency calls.
The board said in their letter the roads have been assigned an E-911 ad- dress. The roads, which are in need of repair, have dangerous potholes and are narrow.
The county asked if it could direct the road department to repair the pot- holes and widen private roads for the safety of the responders. The goal of the improvements is to prevent wear and tear to county-owned vehicles.
“A county may not repair, maintain or improve roads on private property, and rights of way must be acquired by or donated to the county prior to any county funds being spent on such right of way,” according to the Attorney general’s opinion.
For the county to use tax dollars to repair or improve the road, it must become a public road by dedication, prescription or by following the statutory procedure.
President of the Oktibbeha Board of Supervisors Orlando Trainer said the opinion is not a surprise to him and previously told county officials to expect this opinion.
“I know we can’t work on anything unless it’s public,” Trainer said. “What we need to do if we want to do some work on some 911 roads, we need to declare them public so we can work on them.”
Trainer discussed with the board a few ways it can handle the scenario. Trainer said the county could declare a public safety or public nuisance on certain roads.
Trainer also said it could be worthwhile to look at a prescription method, which could bring relief with a small investment.
District 4 Supervisor Bricklee Miller said she brought the issue up because there is a certain area in her district near South Montgomery Street where a school bus turns on a gravel road, and this was her attempt to make the road safer.
“So, that was my reason for a request on my end to see if we could maintain that road, because the school bus does travel it and it has big potholes in it,” Miller said.
Miller said the county is actively looking at ways to address maintenance of private roads frequented by county vehicles.
“My question was specific things and I guess we will just have to look at that a different way,” Miller said. “We can come back and do individual board orders and bring it in front of the board on maybe some specific places that need some attention.”
She said one way to look at maintenance on private roads is to make the particular road in question a school bus turnaround, which would allow the county to have the ability to maintain it.
The opinion says the county would have to be given the road or acquire it to be able to spend tax dollars on maintenance. The county, however, can’t adopt the roads until they are up to a certain standard.
Miller said many family property owners built roads on their private property, but now, since there are multiple people living in the area, emergency vehicles have to travel those roads.
“That’s where that 911 AG opinion comes in,” Miller said. “Where the concern is, it wasn’t built to standards, but now you have multiple homes on there and how would the emergency vehicles get down there, how do you maintain that and who is responsible for that?”
During the board’s discussion about the 911 roads, both District 1 Supervisor John Montgomery and District 3 Supervisor Marvell howard said bringing the individual roads to the board will create a slippery slope for other residents to want their areas maintained.
“I just don’t want this to be Pandora’s Box that we’ve opened that can be abused,” Montgomery said.
Howard said the county is already complaining about road crews not being able to get everything done, and now they are going to look at pulling them off of the current work to fix 911 roads.
“All this is going to do is continue to get us farther and farther behind on roads we are trying to get built and paved,” Howard said.