government beach road complaints dec 2013

[Rob Tucker]

The roads are for everybody, not just a few.

[Obie]

I don't understand why it has to be such a big deal to grade the road more than once or twice a year.
I live off a dirt road in Ohio for part of the year and the township grades it once a month and repairs it after every heavy rain.

[Seeb]

Township is the key word there. More accountability less places to skim money

[kalakoa]

The "access to emergency services" rhetoric applies to large sections of Puna; even those places with nicely paved access are many many many miles from the hospital.

People have been complaining about the roads for over 50 years. What have our elected officials done about it? Simple: they created various flavors of interesting legal fiction ("Road in Limbo", "privately-owned public road", etc) that redefine the issue into "not our responsibility sorry too bad for you".

If you really want/need access to services, move to where those services are, because "they" aren't going to pave the roads in your lifetime.

[Rob Tucker]

Why do so many people think that maintaining a road means paving a road?

[bluesboy]

yeah, what would be the problem if some people wanted to hire a crew to fix up the road? who would have a problem with that, and who would have the authority to do contest it? i mean, it certainly seems okay to tear the road up (by driving on it), so it seems like by that same logic, it would be okay to fix it.

[alaskyn66]

quote:

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Originally posted by Rob Tucker

Why do so many people think that maintaining a road means paving a road?

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Yes, that. Filling in the sinkholes and perhaps a little grading is all that is needed.. keeping it unpaved, but leveled out a bit would still keep out a lot of traffic, compared to the paved roads.

[kalakoa]

quote:

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Why do so many people think that maintaining a road means paving a road?

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Maybe because that's how it's defined by County codes?

quote:

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what would be the problem if some people wanted to hire a crew to fix up the road?

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This is exactly how the private subdivisions are already (mostly) failing to maintain their "privately owned" roads, but Government Beach road is not "private".

I would be interested to see who objects, and what happens if the situation manages to get before a judge. With any luck, it would make national news, so the USians could all laugh at our backward ways.

[bluesboy]

maybe we should stop thinking like the county by equating maintain with pave. IMO they are two totally separate things.

[Clayton]

Councilman Kern once told me that he thought the County could change the code to allow for dirt roads.