Change Promised After Complaints On County Roads

The quality of roads in Antelope County, specifically those in the area northeast of Royal, were a hot topic as almost 50 people attended the Antelope County Commissioners meeting Tuesday morning in Neligh.

Randall Pedersen spoke before the crowd and the commissioners about the roads near his house north of Royal. According to Pedersen, after a rainstorm, the roads near his house one mile north and one mile east of Royal became washed out at the intersections and could be dangerous to travelers. Pedersen said he voiced concerns originally when a tractor parade had planned to go down that road, as well as when a party for the Osmond softball team was being hosted nearby.

“I called Jerry Schwager and explained to him the dangers of the road and the conditions, and that there was a tractor tour and a party going on,” Pedersen said. “And Jerry’s response was this: ‘Why did you call me?’ The next thing he said was ‘Who’s in charge of the tractor tour?’ I said that it was Gary Ober, and he said ‘Call him and tell not to come down this road.’”

Schwager denied the claim and said that the statement was false. “Now that’s not true,” Schwager said.” You never called me.”

Pedersen said he then contacted road boss Casey Dittrich and explained his concern. “(Dittrich) said he would handle it. Nothing happened,” Pedersen said.

On Monday, July 23, Pedersen said he called Dittrich a second time to tell him that nothing had been done to fix the road. After that phone call, he said that they came out and fixed the intersection to the south. According to Pedersen, they came back on Wednesday to fix the intersection to the north.

With the gaps in the work times, Pedersen questioned why it couldn’t have been coordinated within the same day.

“Shouldn't both of these problems all been done in the same day? Why so much duplication? Lack of coordination of employees and equipment. Look at the costs to the county. Isn’t there any fear of neglect and litigation?” he asked.

Pedersen also said that he sees no pride by the workers in clearing the trees on the roads they are working on.

“The county trims the trees with payloaders. We try to keep our place kind of nice down there, but when they come through, it looks like a tornado. The employees or supervisors apparently have no pride in the job they do or the job that gets done...I know from employees only work as hard as their employers,” he said.

Pedersen was met with a roar of applause by the audience after speaking. Dittrich explained that he had an employee examine the intersection after hours and said that the repair could wait until Monday. He said that he trusted their judgment.

“I relied on my employee’s judgement to let it go until Monday. I called the operator who normally maintains the intersection and let him go out on Monday, to which he fixed the intersection and continued east and blew out a tire on his maintainer...Lichtenberg Tire does all of our tire repairs, and the couldn’t come out Monday. They got out there Tuesday, and they worked the east/west road north of you, but did not work the north/south road,” he said.

Dittrich admitted that he felt that he should have double checked his employee’s judgement.

In discussion about the trees along the road, Dittrich pointed out that it is not the county’s job to take care of them.

“The county is not a tree removal company,” Dittrich said. “The landowners are responsible for removing trees. If we have to do it because the landowner won’t do it, we sure as hell won’t spend all day out there making it look nice. We are going to control the trees that don’t allow us to do what we are doing and we are going to leave them there.”

Dittrich said that after discussing with the board and Pedersen and seeing the amount of support in the audience at the meeting, he plans to implement changes in how he does his job.

“I am not going to walk out of here today and continue doing things the way I was doing before. I want you to know that. That’s not the kind person I am, I can’t blow things like this stuff off,” he said. “I just want to explain where I’m coming from because I don’t like doing a bad job at something.”

Other items discussed during the meeting included reports from the Zoning Administrator and Road Boss, courthouse security upgrades and township claims.

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