By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Barton County is nearly flat with some notable hills around Bissell's Point just north of Great Bend. One of those hills is the well-traveled section of Northeast 30 Road just west of Barton Community College. During Tuesday's board of commissioner meeting, Commissioner Shawn Hutchinson addressed ongoing safety concerns about that section of road during winter weather.
"We had discussed with our road and bridge director how we could potentially make that road more safe," he said. "As most people know in the community, it's a steep hill with high winds. Once it gets icy, it's treacherous."
Barton County can apply salt to roads but Hutchinson confirmed himself that salt pellets blow off that stretch of road. Using a salt solution to brine the roads would be another option, but the county does not have a briner. Instead of purchasing a truck for hundreds of thousands of dollars, Hutchinson reached out to the city of Great Bend to contract out its truck.
"We got a response yesterday from Jason Cauley, the public works director," Hutchinson said, "basically denying our request, saying it would take them more than two hours on limited time, when they're already short-staffed, and setting precedence including that the college might ask them to brine their parking lot."
Hutchinson said the precedence set could be government agencies working together. County Counselor Patrick Hoffman said the county would be happy to assume any liability for the work and pay a reasonable price for city services. It's not dissimilar to how townships pay to use county equipment.
"When they built the community college outside of city limits, this all got set into motion," Hoffman said. "This is a solution to a problem that's going to happen every couple of years. We'd love to partner with them and we'd gladly pay a reasonable cost so we don't have to finance a brining truck at taxpayer expense."
Hutchinson proposed a route that included brining North Washington Ave. on the way to Northeast 30 Road. He is hopeful to keep the conversation alive.
"I think as far as precedence, I think the county has a history of helping out the cities and townships, all of them, in different ways," he said. "So I thought this was kind of strange we couldn't come to a solution. Maybe we can. I'm hopeful as well. Maybe put all the BS aside and say if this is good for our citizens and our community's safety, maybe we should partner up on something this small."
Hutchinson also noted many drivers who use the road are young drivers who attend the college and residents of Great Bend.