Neighbors Say Law Broken When Road Closed

(Burke County, Georgia) – Donna Watson and her neighbors say a part of their road has been closed without notice and that makes it illegal.  Now they will have to drive through Midville some six miles out the way to get to Wadley or Louisville. They say they’re angry over the way commissioners handled the matter.

Donna Watson: “I feel like county commission should have let us know so we would have the chance to protest it.”

Under Georgia law, before the county can close or abandoned a county road a notice is published in the newspaper once a week for two weeks, and after a public hearing on the issue, then the county may declare that section of the road system abandoned.

Watson says the only notice she could find in the town newspaper was about an increase in public transit rates.

Watson:  “But nothing about closing our road.”

Fran Watson: “We didn’t know anything about it until someone called me and asked me if I knew it had already been voted on.”

The County Administrator, Merv Waldrop says no notice was published in the newspaper but it was on the on-line Commission agenda to be discussed at their Tuesday meeting.  But the law is specific when it says the notice should be published in the newspaper.  Not once, but twice.

Again Waldrop says it’s a matter of interpretation and he says the county attorney instructed him that the notice could run after the road was closed, letting the public know that that section of the road was now closed.  But Waldrop admits, even that hasn’t happened, yet.

The Watsons say they not give up their fight to keep the road open.  A call to the County Attorney was not returned.