Beat System Supporter Shares Concerns About Unit System
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Dear Editor,
After reading a couple of recent articles about the unit system versus the beat system in Yalobusha County, some thoughts I shared back in 2015 come to mind.
In my view, equipment costs would still be about the same under either system, because the county would still need enough machinery on hand to maintain all the roads.
My bigger concern, however, is that if we switched to a unit system, the road department would likely become centralized. If that happened, those of us who live south of Velma or west of Sylva Rena might rarely see any work being done, since the central barn would almost certainly be located in Water Valley. The road manager would probably live nearby, and there would be little incentive to maintain the outlying corners of the county.
While I understand the concern about the cost of dump trucks, switching systems wouldn’t change that. The cost to replace them would be about the same. In fact, each piece of equipment would experience more wear and tear under a unit system, since crews would have to travel farther to haul gravel or asphalt — with only one stockpile instead of five.
Another issue discussed in 2015 was the need for 4×4 trucks. At that time, only one supervisor had one, and many thought he didn’t need it. From personal experience, I believe each district needs at least one. I, along with now-Supervisor Gaylon Gray and others, had to use our personal 4×4 vehicles to maintain roads during ice and snow. We received no compensation for gas or maintenance.
Tim Little
Beat System Supporter
Beat 5
