By ROD ZOOK
Hutch Post
SOUTH HUTCHINSON, Kan. — South Hutchinson City Administrator Joe Turner issued a press release regarding statements made by County Administrator Randy Partington in a television interview regarding the Scott Boulevard bridge. With the bridge needing replaced, discussion has continued over who is responsible for the small span and who should pay for its upkeep. The cost to replace the span is around $700,000.
In the interview, Partington said, “The county doesn’t have any records of it being a county bridge and [it] never has been.”
Partington claims the road belongs to Reno Township and that Scott Boulevard is a township road dating back to 1936. Turner says longtime employees and officials of the township that he has been in discussion with say the county maintained the bridge until 2012. That’s when the county terminated a link agreement with the city. Turner says the letter shows that the county did have a stake in the small span.
Other people Turner has talked to include former South Hutchinson Public Works Superintendent James Dull. Dull stated that he does not recall city employees ever doing any maintenance to the road and bridge until 2012 when the county terminated the agreement.
City Clerk Denise McCue, who recently returned to South Hutchinson, stated that she has never paid an invoice related to the bridge and that the city has never been invoiced by the county for any maintenance.
The release from Turner went on to say that R.J. Wenzel has been involved with Reno Township since the early 1980s. Turner says that Wenzel told him in a Monday phone call that the township had never maintained Scott Boulevard or the bridge during his tenure and that the township did not build the bridge.
Turner provided two documents that showed the county did have an agreement with the city until 2012 when they terminated that agreement.
The city has offered to share the cost of the bridge 50/50, but the county declined the offer. Until the bridge is replaced, the county will be using South Hutchinson city streets to get to and from its facility located just north of the bridge.
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