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Crews begin work on Calabria roads
McCOOK, Neb. -- Red Willow County's highway superintendent had an answer Monday morning for Calabria residents wondering if and when they need to move bushes, sprinklers or trees before county crews start road work in their subdivision northeast of McCook.
Highway superintendent Gary Dicenta said, "If you've got anything in the county's right-of-way, move it now." He reiterated, "Today's the day to start."
Commissioner Earl McNutt said he would like to start rebuilding, blading and graveling on Calabria and Maureen drives between county roads 719 and 387 by mid-September. However, road work is always at the mercy of the weather, he said.
Some areas on the three drives in the Calabria Subdivision will need only blading and gravel, while areas without ditches will require the most work. And, too, the subdivision entrance off of County Road 719 will need very extensive rebuilding -- at the loss of some buffalo grass, possibly the subdivision sign and much of a resident's front lawn -- to create proper drainage.
Commissioner Vesta Dack said that new ditches won't be the typical 7-foot ditches that line county roads. "We don't have time to build 7-foot ditches," she said. If a property has a 3-foot ditch, why would we rebuild it?" McNutt asked. The subdivision was not designed with 66-foot-wide roads and ditches that the county requires of its roads.
Dicenta told residents that they need to move whatever they have that lies between the existing road and the painted survey markers made of lathe that have appeared or will appear along Calabria, Maureen and ultimately Susanna drives.
The county will not reseed the finished ditches, McNutt said. Dicenta added, "Don't disturb the work the county does," telling residents that they will have to keep their sprinklers from watering the finished ditches and roads.
Calabria Subdivision residents at the commissioners' meeting Monday morning were not upset that the road work is to be done, or that they may have to move something, or that some of them will lose part of their front yards. Several said, however, they expected and want better communication about the project.
McNutt pointed out that it's not typical practice to inform rural residents when county road crews are to be working on the roads. He said it is the responsibility of Calabria residents to schedule a meeting, if they want one, with Dicenta to ask their questions.
Dack said that commissioners have discussed this project during at least four weekly meetings, all of which have been advertised and open to the public. Calabria residents could have attended any or all of the meetings, she said.
Dicenta said he's heard that some residents and the subdivision developer Joe Giorgione are complaining about the surveying work, Giorgione asking a county official that surveyors stay off his property. Dicenta said his surveyors have been on the dedicated streets only.
Part of the problems arise, Dicenta said, because some residents are unsure of their property lines. Dicenta said that if Giorgione considers the roads his property, then he should be responsible for their maintenance.
In a separate, but related, agenda item, commissioners told Gary Power, who lives in the adjacent Miller Replat Subdivision, that the county won't maintain the 3/8-of-a-mile road, Drive 386, through the Miller Replat because of the low population (Power only) along that stretch of road in the subdivision and the lack of a school bus route. McNutt said that road crews have cleaned out the culvert at the entrance into the subdivision, but it frequently fills in the silt from a nearby arena.