COMANCHE COUNTY, Okla_Your bumpy ride
along some of Comanche
County's busiest roads
will soon be a thing of the past.
It's always a
challenge for county commissioners to find money to keep up with repairs, but
his morning, they found a way, and it won't cost taxpayers a dime.
They plan to
use the hospital fund. That's the money Comanche County
Memorial Hospital
used to pay the county for the land it sits on and it equals about $430,000. That
money was never designated for any particular purpose. It will be put to work
to repair several thoroughfares, including west 82nd Street.
It is one of
the busiest roads in the county. It cost over a million dollars when it was
built but Commissioner Don Hawthorne said years of wear and tear have damaged
the road.
"That gets
a lot of traffic into the industrial part and also a lot of traffic in Southwest Comanche
County and Southwest Oklahoma coming
into Lawton."
He said the
county needs to protect its investment and make repairs as soon as possible.
But finding money to do that presented a problem. They couldn't rely on
gasoline taxes from the Oklahoma Tax Commission, because that rate hasn't
increased in years and other costs have.
"The cost
of fuel has gone up, everybody is aware of that. The cost of machinery is up
tremendously, labor costs. As the cost has gone up, our amount of funds that we
get from the highway money has stayed the same. It really stretches us to try
and maintain the roads."
Commissioners Turner
and Hawthorne say they exhausted all options before deciding on using the
hospital fund to help pay for county roads like 82nd Street. They say they even looked at
getting funding based on the amount of fatalities on any given road.
"The roads
on these major roads, luckily we haven't had the fatality count that qualifies
for some counties to qualify for state funding. So then we had to look inside
our county to figure out some funding mechanism that we could come up with."
The
commissioners say they're pleased with their decision to use money readily
available to give drivers what they want: a smooth ride.
"This was
an opportunity that we felt we need to take advantage of and the need was there
and it is a great need that we have."
The
commissioner's say once that money has been taken from the hospital fund, the
fund will be phased out of their budget. They also say that their decision will
have no affect on tax payers.
The
commissioners say the money will be used towards several projects in the
county: including, 82nd street
from Coombs to Highway 36 will be repaired and Whitfield road, which is just
outside of Sterling.
