NWA EDITORIAL | Waste of tax dollars? Here’s a concrete example

Project reflects waste of taxpayer dollars

Work to demolish a bridge continues Thursday along Wyola Road at its intersection with Parker Branch Road near Brentwood in south Washington County. Visit nwaonline.com/photo for todays photo gallery.

(NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe)
Work to demolish a bridge continues Thursday along Wyola Road at its intersection with Parker Branch Road near Brentwood in south Washington County. Visit nwaonline.com/photo for todays photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe)

It had to be an extraordinary sight: A bridge construction project spanning London Creek on which Washington County spent $495,000 was demolished before it was finished.

It wasn't exactly London Bridge falling down, but the effect was the same: Nobody got a chance to even use it. Nearly half a million dollars spent and the bridge was never a benefit to any of taxpayers who funded it.

Washington County Judge Patrick Deakins, who has occupied the post since January -- before that, he served as an elected member of the Quorum Court -- described the situation this way: This bridge on Wyola Road near Brentwood in southeast Washington County came to his attention because it was going to require another $1.1 million to be usable.

The bridge structure itself, it turns out, was well beyond what was necessary to improve crossing conditions for motorists. There's no question a better option was needed there. A low-water crossing is frequently overwhelmed when it rains and the creek rises.

The bridge was so big, the county was going to have to devote money and time to rebuilding the approaches. A smaller but just as effective project wouldn't require that.

The saddest part of all this is at least one local resident raised concerns when he first saw the new bridge under construction. Rather than a bridge, the project really just needed less expensive box culverts, according to resident Terry Coe, who has a background in construction.

He told a reporter for this paper that he tried to meet with county officials "and was told I didn't know what I was talking about."

"And now they're tearing it down," he said. "It's a waste of taxpayer money."

It sure looks and sounds like it.

Let's be sure this is understood: The county judge is in charge of the county road department. As we noted, Deakins has been in that post just a few months. The bridge project got started under his predecessor, Joseph Wood.

Astonishingly, Judge Deakins said he could find nothing in county records to explain how the decisions for the project were made back then.

Deakins acknowledged the project "makes no sense to us."

"It seems the county had these bridge structures and someone thought they should be used," Deakins said. "It sounds like more of a solution in search of a problem."

Now the county will use box culverts to form a crossing, at a cost of about $664,000, according to the Road Department.

We hear from time to time people don't have a lot of common sense these days. That appears to be the case with the original project. It looks like an example of government thinking a square block can go in a round hole just because government has some spare square blocks.

What if the previous administration was still in office? Does anyone think the bridge would have been scuttled? These are the kinds of strange discoveries that come to light sometime after a change in administrations.

Was it incompetence?

Perhaps all that can be said is it's wise that this administration didn't want to flush more money downstream.


Whats the point?

After a change in administrations, the new Washington County judge pulls the plug on a wasteful bridge project.

 



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