The Russell County Road Committee met on Monday for the first time since the election of two new magistrates on the court.

As required by the Department of Local Government, the Russell County Road Committee will meet quarterly to discuss road repair, road projects and road safety issues.

The committee consists of the members of the Russell County Fiscal Court.

District three Magistrate Ronald Johnson was voted as Chair of the committee with District two Magistrate Larry Holt being voted in as Vice-Chair.

To open the meeting Johnson said that Flex Fund road fund money list has been compiled for submittal to Frankfort.  District one Magistrate Greg Popplewell said that he was not certain they had yet been submitted, and that it was his understanding that a discussion would have to take place to agree to the list of roads the magistrates would like to get funding for before submission.

At the later Fiscal Court meeting the list of roads were agreed to by the magistrates.

Popplewell brought out that the guard rails on Half Acre Road Bridge were in very poor shape; "There's a danger, there's been three cars that have gone over the bridge in the last eight months.  They went completely over into the creek, and that's about an eight to 10 foot drop…. It's a danger to the community and I hope we get those looked at."

 Popplewell acknowledged that he had submitted the bridge on a guard rail program the county is pursuing with the state.

A discussion ensued regarding the best way to procure guard rails and scrap metal for guard rails; "That needs to be fixed, whether you get help from the state with that or not," said Holt.

 Other projects suggested as needing work were a road tile on Patterson Rd, Mount Eden Rd., Old Dunbar Rd. and Airport Rd.

Road Crew Supervisor Darrin Hadley gave what suggestions he could to how the road crew could make due to do repairs in all the cases specified.

A number of roads were identified as needing to have potholes filled and others where whole sections would need to be patched due to the harsh winter conditions effects on the roads.  Johnson said the magistrates have been getting a lot of calls.  

A discussion ensued on whether to purchase a few trucks of "hot mix" from the county's contracted asphalt supplier and what work could be done by the county road crew.

The general agreement was for the county's road crew to do all the work they can themselves with the equipment they have available.

No items were brought up for vote, but during the meeting prioritization of work to be done with scarce financial resources, as well as efforts to secure funding from the state for road projects were clarified for committee members.