County commission agrees to take on ownership, maintenance of NCHS access road

Problems with annexation prevents Kingdom City from taking road on MoDOT completion schedule

Following a Wednesday meeting with the Kingdom City Board of Aldermen, the Callaway County Commission has agreed to take ownership of the new North Callaway High School access road from the Missouri Department of Transportation once it's completed in August.

Kingdom City had originally planned to take ownership - and maintenance duties - of the new road, but in preparations to do so found that portions of the road would not fall within city limits.

Callaway County Western District Commissioner Donald "Doc" Kritzer said that, as the county originally had agreed to ownership of the road prior to Kingdom City's tentative deal, the county was prepared to take on the project either temporarily while Kingdom City could go through the proper annexation procedures, or permanently.

"We are willing to continue to go back to that original plan so we can move forward - it's a safety issue up there for the school," Kritzer said. "We agreed so that we don't run into some delays and (can) allow the advertising and the bid opening to occur. They're talking about advertising in January, opening bids in February and construction to begin in March or April on it - to get that all in place and functional, we agreed that we would take it."

Declaring intent of ownership now is necessary for MoDOT to continue with developing and building the road on schedule. Were the department to wait for Kingdom City to acquire the land, the production schedule would be delayed, meaning the access road would not be finished before school starts in August.

To help the tornado-stricken people of Dumas and surroundings, donations can be made to the Delta Area Disaster Relief Fund, care of the Delta Area Community Foundation, P.O. Box 894, Dumas, AR, 71639, or through the Arkansas Community Foundation, 700 S. Rock St., Little Rock, AR, 72202.