Frustrating Annoying StripEs

Progress is slow for filling in the stripEs and not in it’s entirety. Some roads will only get inside corners “mitigated”. A section of #77 near Tower has inside corners, outside corners and straight stretches all done on a one side of the road about 3 miles long. It looks like the other side of the road is being prepped to be done also. What is ironic is that there are very few, if any, homes in that area! And I might add it is not a very good job as you can still notice the gouges in some spots. Why is that road any more important than any other of the roads that have been defaced where there are actually homes along the road? Louder grumblers? Higher tourist traffic? Wealthier taxpayers that can afford to support re-election campaigns? Why are not my tax dollars as important? I know where my vote will NOT go on the next election! Not one single updated e-mail from any of the commissioners, as they promised. And messages to return my calls have been ignored.

The best I can hope for now is that the pavement will get torn up so bad from the heavy traffic of semis and other vehicles that the road will have to be re-paved and hopefully they will not make the same MISTAKE again. I have said it before and once again now. I have no objection to putting a rumble strip ON THE SHOULDER! The rumble stripEs (gouges directly under the white fog line) are ridiculous and totally unnecessary on country residential roads. I know people will say “If it saves just one life, then it is worth it”. Fact – one death in 11 years on County 21, and the circumstances of the fatality were ‘snow covered icy road’. Neither a rumble strip nor a stripE would have made any difference of that vehicle sliding off the road. Can we say overkill from the County Road Maintenance engineer? And shame on all of the commissioners who voted to support it without actually realizing what chaos it would create. Read the fine lines! Ask your constituents! Earn your pay! Do your research! Itasca County made the same mistake several years ago. They had a petition with only FIFTY signatures that forced their county to fill them in. We have a petition with over FIVE HUNDRED! Not a single board member asked to see any of them.

We will not go away and we will not shut-up! Do the right thing, County Board. Someone should also be keeping tabs on the County Road Maintenance engineer, too. If he has a free hand to make decisions as stupid as this one, that has cost all of us a whole lot of money, then let’s not allow him to throw away the funding that could actually be used to benefit all of us.

Carol Herberg

Embarrass