Logan County District 1 update

District 1 has been a busy place the last few weeks. Right at the end of the 4th wettest rainy spell in Oklahoma history, we had both mowers break down on the same day. We waited on warrantied parts for the boom mower. When they came in we installed and had the mower working for about 5 hours when the operator discovered an oil leak on the tractor. Being a newer mower it is covered by warranty but we had to take it to the dealer to be repaired, and it is not back yet. The other mower that has a bat wing deck, was down for about 3 weeks, As of Tuesday it has been repaired and mowing. Hopefully we will soon be mowing a forest near you. 

We have had a couple of men removing trees before we shape Rockwell north of Waterloo for 1.5 miles. Oneok is furnishing the gravel once the road is shaped up. We have another donation from a resident to gravel about one half mile of on Prairie Grove east of Council. We have been way behind on culvert installations and the drier weather has allowed us to catch up on those.

We still have several places in South Logan that need extensive base repair to complete fixing some road failures. The Charter Oak Bridge received some erosion in the last few floods. I know the contractor building the bridge must be frustrated, every time they get close to finishing it floods and delays them. We are going to put rip-rap to attempt to prevent future erosion along the roadway.

Striping has been completed on various collector roads by Action Safety. Atlas Paving has indicated the first mile of Simpson Rd will be started September 15; they will repair base failures before the overlay. Atlas has asked for about 7 weeks to complete the project. They should finish well in advance but when everything is dictated by weather and circumstances allow for the worse and hope the best.

District 1 received a grand total of $101,139.90 in operating money for September, after paying employees and taking care of equipment payments. We have $49,039.90 to spend on roads this month. With gravel costing about $20100.00 per mile, you can see it is quite a task to spread that amount of money over hundreds of miles of roads and thousands of people. We will keep plugging along and always be seeking alternative funding. I feel that I have a moral obligation and my character will not allow me to mislead the residents on the monetary facts regarding Logan County. We post on the web the monthly budget and I will meet and discuss with anyone that wishes to learn about Highway money.