Gravel bonds to go before township voters

The presidential race may be over, but in only three months Nodaway County voters will head back to the polls to cast ballots in municipal elections.

There won't be any television advertising blitzes or huge campaign rallies, and the races and issues aren't expected to be especially divisive or controversial.

But that doesn't mean the vote is not important. Municipal elections, after all, determine who sits on school boards and city councils, and whether or not your road gets graveled.

Five of the county's 15 townships plan to hold "rock bond" elections on Tuesday, April 2, the kind of decision that can have more real impact on farmers and other rural dwellers that any number of "big" issues debated in Washington, D.C., or Jefferson City.

On Friday, the Nodaway County Commission accepted petitions from townships seeking to place road maintenance bond issues on the ballot. Each request bore 20 resident signatures that must now be verified by County Clerk Beth Walker.

Townships attempting to issue gravel bonds this year include Monroe (southwest Nodaway County, $100,000); Jackson (eastern Nodaway County, $150,000); Union (northern Nodaway County, $75,000); Grant (southern Nodaway County, $100,000); and Atchison (northwestern Nodaway County, $180,000).    

On each of five ballot measures, voters will decide whether or not their township should incur three years' worth of debt in order to buy gravel and purchase or maintain road graders and other equipment.

Revenue to pay back the bonds is collected by adding a surcharge to landowners' property tax bills.

Nodaway is one of only 22 Missouri counties out of a total of 114 that still has a township form of government, meaning that locally elected boards administer 15 subdivisions within the county charged primarily with maintaining rural roads and other infrastructure.

Since Nodaway County is geographically the fifth-largest in the state, this is not exactly a small task. All told, the county has approximately 1,000 miles of gravel roads and 200 miles of dirt roads.

Rural infrastructure here also comprises more than 370 county-maintained bridges, more than any other county in the state.

In addition to having responsibility for bridges, the County Commission also subsidizes township gravel purchases and maintains a system of hundreds of drainage tubes that pass beneath township-owned roads.