Friday, November 9, 2018

Franklin County can no longer afford to own Alligator Point Road

 Alligator Point Road is too expensive for the county to own and commissioners are now looking at what their options might be.

Restore coordinator Alan Pierce said the repairs needed to rebuild Alligator Point Road after Hurricane Michael are beyond the county's reach.

Numerous storms in recent years has damaged nearly 2500 feet of road at Alligator Point and fixing all of that could cost 7 and a half million dollars the county doesn't have.

The county doesn't even have the required match of about 560 thousand dollars it would need to get the state to fix the road.

And since the erosion will continue, the county's engineers are recommending that metal sheets be placed on both sides of the road be so when the next erosion event inevitably happens at least the roadway will stay in place.

The bigger problem is that the erosion will keep moving east and west and eat up more land and road so Pierce says either the governor waives the match and the state fixes the road or there needs to be a constant funding source to keep paying for these and future repairs.

Pierce said the most logical new funding source would be a road maintenance assessment on those property owners that need to use the road – but that would be a very big assessment.

Barring that, he said the county might want to consider abandoning Alligator Point Road altogether.

The County commission said their first step will be to contact the governor's office to explain how important the waiver is toward getting the road repaired and hopefully to talk the state into taking ownership of the road.

Commissioner Cheryl Sanders said the only reason the county even owns the road is because the state forced them to take it because the state couldn't afford to own it either.

She added that in the past the county has tried to start a beach re-nourishment program at the point but residents opposed it.

She said the county also tried to levy an assessment on residents to create a road repair fund and the residents opposed that too.

Now she says Alligator Point residents are going to have to step up and pay a much bigger share of the cost.

Franklin County taxpayers association president Alan Pfeiffer said the county wants Alligator Point to succeed and he hopes the county will not abandon the150 or so homes at the Point which make up a substantial portion of the county's tax base.

But he agrees the county cannot cover the costs alone.

He said 143 Alligator Point residents have signed letter that will be a full page ad in the Tallahassee Democrat asking the state to take over Alligator Point Road.


He is also working to get a personal meeting between the governor and state and local leaders to discuss the issue in person.  


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