Elizabeth Township resident at odds with county, others

ELIZABETH TOWNSHIP — Mike Lewis checks his white pickup truck for damage. It’s a chilly, sunny day and the vehicle’s front left tire has just slid off what serves as the road as he was trying to cross a culvert.

The vehicle is left stuck with three tires on and one off the side of the structure. The truck isn’t going anywhere until a tow truck can pull it out.

This is something that the Elizabeth Township man has feared since he began crossing the culvert last year, after rainwater washed out another culvert on the other end of the road that goes by his home. That has left him and his family with no choice but to drive a road that is nearly impassible with mud except when the ground is frozen solid.

Now Lewis is seeking the help of either the Lawrence County Engineer’s Office, The Ironton Country Club or the township trustees. He would like the one of those entities to take responsibility and make repairs to the road.

“I want the county to take it over or force the country club to fix their property,” Lewis said. “Preferably for them to turn it back over to the township.”

Exactly who is responsible for which part of the road remains the biggest dispute.

The roads are situated like this: Rock Hollow Road connects with U.S.52 just past the Hanging Rock exit. Rock Hollow is also known as County Road 128, which runs into Township Road 128E.

The road dead ends right next to Lewis’s property, but a roadway juts off to the left at the dead end. This is the entrance to his property that Lewis has been using. Lewis said he can only cross it with his pickup truck.

“Gas trucks can’t get here. Water trucks can’t get here,” Cindy Lewis, Mike Lewis’s wife, said. “We’re having to give them the meter readings. I mean everybody. Nobody can get here. We can’t even have company. My car has sat out there with dust on it for months.”

There is another entrance to Lewis’ property that comes from County Road 43 and through the country club’s golf course. Lewis has not been able to use that since another culvert was washed out.

According to records from the Lawrence County Auditor’s Office, Lewis’ address is 0 Township Road 128 E. Just next door to his, his daughter’s home, which he also owns, is listed as 0 County Road 43.

A 2009-2010 map from the Lawrence County Engineer’s office shows the road as Township Road 128 but it also is denoted as “Pvt” for private drive in parenthesis.

County engineer Doug Cade said this is a mapping error and that when the road reaches the country club’s property it becomes a private road.

Lewis took his campaign to get the road navigable again to the Lawrence County Commission meeting Thursday. He presented commissioners with a petition bearing the names of 60 residents in the area.

“This road has been neglected and hasn’t been serviceable for awhile,” Lewis said. “I brought it to Mr. Boggs’ attention. It has not been taken care of by the township or the county. Since I’ve been out there, I’ve been told it was a township road, a county road or a private road. I believe it is a township road. I have done a lot of research. Every time I bring this up to the county engineer and others, I’m told it is a private road and it’s a mapping error.”

Commissioner Jason Stephens told Lewis that after mapping was done for the 911 emergency system, errors have occasionally been discovered.

“The map doesn’t match what the engineer has on what is a county road and a township road,” Stephens said.

Boggs said his research through records back to 1952 showed it isn’t the county’s responsibility.

“There is no indication that strip is a county road, according to the engineer,” Boggs said.

If it is not a township road, Lewis wants that to change. He wants either the county or the township takeover the road so that County Road 43 comes all the way through the country club, to Township Road 128 and County Road 128.

Lewis also has a letter of support from Rock Hill Superintendent Wes Hairston. The letter states the superintendent wants the road to be passable for the safety of school children in buses that travel that road.

Lewis and his wife bought the property from the Ironton Country Club approximately five years ago. At the time, Lewis said the country club told him they would provide for upkeep of the road of what was going to be a subdivision.

The country club, on the other hand, denies taking responsibility for the road and says that the lots were never to be part of a subdivision.

“I wasn’t in charge when it was sold,” Bob Isaac, current president of the country club, said. “We allowed a right-of-way from the private road that ran through (the golf course). We took no responsibility into maintaining it.”

Cade said in order for the township or county to takeover the road, Lewis would need the country club to sign off on it because they are one of the affected property owners.

Isaac said the country club does not intend to give the private drive off of County Road 43 over to the county or township.

“We don’t want to give that over to the county because we don’t want traffic through there,” Isaac said. As far as the exit on Rock Hollow Road, Isaac said “I think we own that and we’ll give it to the county but they won’t accept it until it’s in a better condition. We aren’t going to fix it. We don’t use it and we don’t need to fix it.”

The commissioners agreed to have a meeting on Tuesday with the Elizabeth Township Trustees, the engineer and a representative from the Lawrence County Soil and Water District that handled the 911 mapping and Lewis.