Old Highway 8 won’t be closed after all
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An earlier effort to close the road instituted by Highway Patrol Sgt. Jimmy Jones in October of 2003, was subsequently scrapped in February of this year after property owners Dwight and Hannah O’Neal and Mason and Lena Smith appeared at a Highway and Bridge Committee meeting to voice their opposition.
But after the death of Eli Todd Brown due to an accident on the road in June of this year, Highway and Bridge Committee chairman Gary Prater called a special meeting to reintroduce the idea. At that meeting, the committee voted to present a resolution to the full county commission to close and block off the road with locked gates.
Under the plan to close the road, property owners, utilities and emergency personnel were to be provided with keys under the plan.
O’Neal, who had personally contacted commissioners in the weeks before the meeting, was allowed to address the commission prior to the vote Monday.
“Thank you for this opportunity to address tonight’s resolution concerning the closing of the section of Old Highway 8,” O’Neal began. “I’m speaking on behalf of my family, and the Mason and Lena Smith family, Billie Haley, and Gary Adcock. We are opposed to closing this section of road. We are not asking the county for anything we did not have when our families first purchased these properties, and that’s being free and easy access to these properties. Free to come and go and manage our land as we see fit.”
O’Neal explained he and the other property owners felt this move would limit their access unduly, and devalue their property in the process.
Commissioners agreed, as evidenced by the failure of the resolution by a large majority. O’Neal said later he was pleased with the outcome.
“I think the commissioners, after to talking to all of them, and after them putting the shoe on the other foot, felt this action was not in the best interest of the county, and also the property owners,” O’Neal said.
Some commissioners told O’Neal they had other reasons for not supporting the move.
“Some of those commissioners told me, several of them said, they never felt like closing a road was progress,” O’Neal said, “and some of the commissioners felt the county had dropped the ball on this by not maintaining what they had.”
Still, O’Neal wanted it clear he had no ill feelings over the controversy, and was sending letters to the commissioners thanking them, including those who had supported the closure.
“I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “I’m glad it’s maybe reconciled for awhile.”