CULLMAN – In the August 24 Cullman County Commission meeting, Commissioner Garry Marchman voted against many of the items on the agenda. Marchman, one of three of the Commission’s members, says he is concerned about the Commission’s focus and the direction in which they are headed.
Marchman says he receives around five complaints concerning roads each day. The Cullman County Road Department receives close to 20. One of the complaints Marchman says he received was from a resident who has a mail carrier begging them to call someone to get the road fixed. According to the mail carrier, the road is tearing up his vehicle.
Marchman said, “Now, I don’t have the money to fix those things. So what do I do? You gotta be innovative, you gotta look at things and say, ‘Do I need to spend the money?’”
Here are the four things the commissioner voted against and why:
- Consider repairs and replacement of equipment for the Putt-Putt Golf Course.
According to Marchman, “These are some things that go on the putt-putt course at Sportsman Lake, they are little metal animals. They (the other commissioners) agreed to spend almost $15,000 dollars on these decorations.”
- Consider authorizing the purchase of up to nine modular FEMA trailers for the OHV Park.
Cost per trailer: $7,500. Cost of setup: $9,000. Cost of running power to each trailer: $3,500. Cost of handicap decks and 8×8 decks: $4,500. The costs just for buying the nine trailers came out to $86,112. The house trailers will be set up at Stony Lonesome to rent out. “The pitch on this was that it would pay for itself in a year and it won’t. Yeah you can put numbers down and say, ‘I’m gonna rent this every weekend for a year and you know, we’ll have our investment back.’ It’s not gonna happen. One reason is, you’re gonna have to pay someone cleaning, you gotta pay someone to maintain them, you gotta figure all that in.” Marchman declared that these maintenance costs were not included in the total figure of spending.
According to Marchman the trailers will need continual maintenance. For instance, in a couple years they will have to replace the flooring in the bathrooms. Marchman says he has rented out trailers before so has real experience with this type of business.
- Consider authorizing the signing of an advertising agreement for advertising Smith Lake Park.
The Commission approved $10,000 on a Smith Lake advertisement displayed on a professional fishing boat. Marchman did not vote yes on this because he feels it is not a sound investment.
- Marchman voted no to a vehicle the animal shelter asked for.
The reason for his opposition was that he says the vehicle had a couple of added unnecessary specifications that cost the tax payers an extra $6,000 dollars.
Marchman says that he met with County Engineer John Lang, and they came to the conclusion that the cost to get Cullman County’s roads where they need to be would be in the ballpark of $120 million. Of course that is quite a lot of money and will take time, but Marchman thinks it should be made more of a priority.
“That is an astronomical number, but can we meet some of these needs? Sure. The $150,000 we spent would have chip-sealed 4-5 miles of road. I can take you to a 5-mile stretch of road that is in horrible shape. This road has 141 residences on it. This would service 141 families and a lot of traffic. That’s my point. I think we gotta manage better. It’s not necessarily somebody not doing their job, it’s just a disagreement,” he said matter-of-factly.
“The reason I did what I did was I want the public to know. I want them to understand what’s going on. When they have that understanding it’s not necessarily to say whether I’m right, or I’m wrong,” claimed Marchman.
He continued, “Parks takes a lot of money to operate, a park is a way for us as a county, not as commissioners but as a county, to offer you a place to go. Smith Lake Park, Sportsman Lake Park, these are all things done for the system. And they’re good and they’re wonderful things but they’re not gonna fix that pothole. Maintaining them is one thing, but adding to them is another.”
Marchman says he does not want to stop caring for Cullman County’s beautiful parks. He says he wants to make the roads, that the people of his county drive on every day, much safer, better quality roads.
The next Cullman County Commission meeting is Tuesday, Sept. 13 at 10 a.m. in the Commission office conference room, first floor, Cullman County Courthouse. The public is welcome to attend.
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