Supervisors: No Additional Regs Needed For Trail Rides
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Yalobusha County supervisors requested for deputies to patrol the road where trail rides are held in the future to ensure traffic is not impeded. The request follows discussion last week following complaints about a trail ride held on March 30 (above) on property adjacent to County Road 216.
WATER VALLEY – County supervisors decided against enacting an ordinance regulating trail rides in Yalobusha County following discussion prompted by recent complaints about multiple events held on private property off of County Road 216 in western Yalobusha County. Complaints about events at this location from neighboring residents included loud music, vehicle congestion that impeded traffic and several inches of mud caked on the road.
Supervisors requested that Sheriff Jerimaine Gooch have deputies patrol the area during future events to ensure that traffic including emergency vehicles are not blocked by trail ride attendees who park along the side of the road and to make sure there is no damage including mud-caked roads at the next event. Supervisors also recommended towing vehicles if they are blocking traffic.
The most recent trail ride – an event people attend to ride ATVs and UTVs (side-by-sides) and enjoy music and food – was held on private property along County Road 216 in western Yalobusha County near I-55 on March 29. Located in District 4 Supervisor Eddie Harris’ district, he brought the matter to the attention of other county officials during the April 7 meeting at the Water Valley courthouse. Harris displayed multiple pictures showing the mud on the road and damage to the road ditches.
“I don’t mind them having whatever (event) they want to have,” Harris said. “But four inches of mud in the road and people trying to come through there Sunday morning headed to church, that is just not right.”
“That is a safety hazard,” District 5 Supervisor Gaylon Gray noted. “We have shut loggers down for getting mud on the road.”
At his request, Harris said Sheriff Gooch sent a deputy out the following day, March 30, instructing the landowner who hosted the event to pick up the trash left behind and to clean the mud off the road.
“They did pick up the trash,” Harris said. “Then my county crew got there Monday afternoon. We tried to scrape as much mud off of it as we could.”
Agitating Harris even more was input on a post on social media about the road with multiple people chiming in saying it is the county’s responsibility to get the mud off the road and he even got the same response from the landowner.
“This can’t happen again,” Harris stressed. “What can be done?”
“If they are riding side-by-sides (on a public road), they are not street legal,” Gray said. “But I use mine every day on the road checking cows, this is a fine line,”
“You go half a mile down the road, there is nothing wrong with that,” Harris said about operating a side-by-side on a public road.
Board President Cayce Washington said he also received a text from a property owner on County Road 216 about the March 29 trail ride.
“My response, unless they are breaking laws, there is not much we can do,” Washington said.
The discussion then shifted to ordinances adopted by other counties including Clay and Lafayette to regulate trail rides.
“Clay County, it has a special event ordinance. You have to put up a $500 permit fee and the ordinance has a definition of what a special event it,” Board Attorney Shannon Crow said. “Their ordinance was modeled after Lafayette County’s ordinance,” the attorney continued.
Washington said he was familiar with Lafayette County’s ordinance, citing two different weddings he was involved with that involved shooting fireworks in the neighboring county.
“We had to get a permit and had to do it within a certain timeframe to keep from violating a noise ordinance,” Washington noted. “We can put something on the books, but if we do it for the trail rides, we have to do it across the board. It would be no different from wedding events held at Colonel’s Landing,” Washington continued, a reference to a venue used primarily for weddings located off of Hwy. 32 west.
During a supervisor meeting last October, neighboring property owners including Lamar O’Brien, Jeffrey Harrison and Alisah Harrison discussed the impact of trail rides held on property on County Road 216. Event organizer Zan Dogan and property owners Wesley Bradford and Anderson Bradford also attended the meeting and among options discussed to appease both sides was shutting down the music around 10 p.m. Supervisors noted during the October meeting that they would review the situation before making a decision on how to address it.
Other business in the April 7 meeting:
• Awarded the bid for cutting grass at all county-owned buildings to Claude Harris. He bid $960 per month for two cuttings. Other bidders were William Jeffreys, who bid $1,000 per month, and Bill Pullen, who bid $8,775 for mowing season.
“That is going to be greater than $960 per month,”Washington said about Pullen’s bid.
• Approved travel expenses for constables Randy Simmons and Ralph Horton to attend the annual week-long convention in June. The expenses included $450 for dues and $154 per night for hotel rooms.
• Board President Cayce Washington reported the City of Water Valley donated a bucket truck previously used by the Water Valley Electric Department. Washington explained that 1992 truck can not longer be certified for work on power lines.
“It will still work, they just can’t use it for that purpose. They are willing to donate the truck to us,” Washington explained. “It is a pretty nice truck.”
Washington said the truck could be used to cut trees on rights-of-way along county roads.
• Discussed the repair of two weather alert sirens in the county.
• Approved a request from Solero Technologies, LLC for an industrial tax exemption for equipment assessed at $1,489,923.03. The exemption is granted routinely, both in Yalobusha County and statewide, for the maximum 10-year period and includes all local property taxes except school district taxes.
