Neighborhood seeks city's help
Speeding cars, unfinished work
By Elizabeth Billips lizbillips@yahoo.com

Residents in the West Ninth Street neighborhood want city officials to do something about speeding motorists.

"From Lovers Lane to Martin Luther King Boulevard, it's almost like a racetrack," resident Pauline Jenkins, the city's former vice-mayor, told Waynesboro officials last Monday night.

She says that problem is exacerbated by a sinkhole city workers filled with dirt and gravel six months ago but never came back to repave.

"Nobody slows down and there's gravel flying everywhere," she said, noting she raked enough rocks out of her yard to line her flower bed and was nearly hit by a rock in the process. "There's children playing in yards, and we don't want them to get hit."

City administrator Jerry Coalson said the delay was due to the fact that the city is no longer able to get free asphalt from a Department of Transportation (DOT) plant near Augusta.

Now, city workers have to collect it from a DOT plant in Davisboro or purchase it from private companies at a price of about $1,500 per truckload.

"We have enough potholes that a truckload would be well worth paying for," Jenkins said, noting that huge holes on Quaker Road have been awaiting asphalt for nearly two years.

While city officials did not address the speeding problems on West Ninth Street, they did agree to move forward with pothole patching.