Council looks to protect road surface

When Freedom Holding Company began excavating the C-Bar Estates subdivision in Pine Haven a couple years ago, Vince Waters of Keyhole Ranch allowed the waste dirt and timber to be stockpiled on his property in a dump pit just beyond the east end of Vista Grande Drive with dirt transported back onto the site as circumstances demand.

At first, the rancher was permitting the heavy trucks to use a two-track running along the fence line between the town and ranch; however, he later was made aware that the path thought to be his is, in fact, the property of local resident Lonny Fuller. Fuller does not wish to grant access through his property to the trucks as they disturb others living in the area.

Waters has discussed the need to establish a two-track along his side of the same fence-line, but this plan has not yet reached fruition, which in turn has created issues for Vista Grande Drive. Pine Haven's streets were not created to carry this type of overweight truck traffic and the avenue is now breaking down.

Mayor Karla Brandenburg pointed out the concern voiced by the entire council at last Tuesday's workshop: "That's what's caused all the damage on Vista Grande, all this heavy traffic...We just have to get with Vince [Waters] and get that solved. In my opinion, [the heavy trucks] need to stay off of there. Vince agrees, but he's got to get a road."

Council and HDR Engineering's Heath Turbiville have been considering immediate options to this costly dilemma available to the town.

Councilman Rob Norton suggested quick patch work to mitigate the larger potholes until the street can be fully restored in the future, a job public works director Sean Glasser will manage, costing Pine Haven only the price of materials.

The group discussed the amount of preparation they wanted to make to the area before flooding the holes with the repair compound.

"I don't know," the mayor shared her studied opinion, "if we want to go that far with it or do we just want him to put the stuff over and know that it's going to fall apart again? The issue is that we're not going to be able to fix Vista Grande until next fiscal year (2024/2025)...We're saying that we want to finish the chip seal with the money we have set aside this year for roads so we're a year out."

Brandenburg followed the consensus of her council and spoke to Glasser, describing the repair work they chose: "We're not going to do any base work repair – we're not going to try to fix it, all we're going to do is make it so they can drive over it for the next year until we can fix it."

Glasser will fill as many cavities in the roadbed as possible with existing budgetary restrictions, "We don't want to put too much money into it," the mayor advised, "and then tear it all up in a year."