The financial responsibility for the maintenance of Bemiss Road, I-75 exit ramps and state routes outside the Valdosta city limits has become a matter of contention leading to a disagreement between the Georgia Department of Transportation and Lowndes County.

While the County believes a verbal “handshake” agreement with the GDOT should place the $85,000-a-year responsibility in the department’s lap, the GDOT maintains that there is not and never was an official contract, placing the responsibility with the County.

 More than five years ago, the County worked to develop a contract with GDOT that would earn the county a reimbursement for mowing along the roads, but the contract was never fully realized, according to County Manager Joe Pritchard, and instead passed “back and forth between attorneys” to cater to the interests of both parties.

However, the negotiations led Pritchard to believe that in spite of the lack of resolution regarding the pending contract, GDOT would still honor the unofficial agreement.

“The (GDOT) leadership changed, and the unofficial agreement had been all along that we would cut the grass and we would be reimbursed at a point in time, but the leadership change resulted in the contract being put aside,” Pritchard said.

For at least the past five years, the County has spent $85,000 a year to mow Bemiss Road from Oak Street to Moody Air Force Base, as well as exit ramps on I-75, County Clerk Paige Dukes said. This comes to a loss of at least $425,000 for the County if the issue is unresolved.

“(Bemiss) road has a sidewalk, too, so not only do you have to mow, but also weed-eat, and get the trash picked up and all that,” Dukes said.

Georgia DOT District Engineer Joe Sheffield believes that because no paperwork was signed, there is simply no agreement. An agreement was still being “hammered out,” he said, but was never officially executed.

“There are several locations which at (the County’s) request, we have issued them permits to mow,” Sheffield said. “Lowndes County is doing (the mowing) at their request; there is no compensation for the permit.”

In light of the recent agreement signed between the Valdosta City Council and the GDOT for the reimbursement of $3,500 per mile every year for the maintenance of roads within the city limits, which will net the city nearly $100,000 per year, Pritchard would like to “re-open the issue” and pursue the contract a second time, as well as finally seek compensation for the work that has already been done.

“Appropriate contracts and arrangements need to be made to live up to the understanding we had at that time (five years ago),” Pritchard said.

In spite of the misunderstanding, there is no bad blood between the two parties, both Pritchard and Sheffield said, only a misunderstanding of terminology that must be resolved.

Pritchard expects the GDOT to work with the County to arrive at a method of compensation for its financial losses, and he is confident that the department will be “fair and equitable.”

According to Sheffield, GDOT “would be open to discussion” on the issue of compensation as well as the consideration of a new contract.

“It’s hard for us to pay somebody when we don’t have an agreement,” Sheffield said.

Pritchard said every time they approached GDOT for funds, the County was told that the department “was broke.”

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