ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
After educating constituents about the mill levy, the appraisal process and the need for additional funding to help provide services, Seward County leaders turned their attention to that of road conditions in the county at the recent town hall meeting in Kismet, and much of that conversation concerned a question local residents will be answering this November.
“There will be a question on the ballot, and that question will be regarding whether or not the community of Seward County is in favor or not in favor of a half-cent sales tax that would be imposed to just Road and Bridge,” Administrator April Warden said.
Warden reminded those in attendance of the several town halls the current commissioners have hosted since coming into office, and she said one of the hot topics at those meetings were roads.
“We kept hearing over and over and over again about the state our roads are in, whether that be gravel roads or asphalt,” she said. “All of you in this room are very familiar with the Massoni Bridge and the need for that to take place. They listened to you. They got a plan together.”
While county officials were not trying to persuade taxpayers to vote for or against the sales tax, as that decision lies in the hands of the taxpayers themselves, Warden said she and others were merely trying to share facts with the Kismet audience.
Warden and Commission Chairman Scott Carr recently testified before both the Kansas House and Senate to get permission to put the sales tax question on the ballot.
Some of the information Warden provided included facts about the initial construction of county roads and how they were not built to handle the excessive traffic such as heavy trucks and large equipment seen in today’s world.
“Farm equipment has definitely changed over the years since our roads were built, including the overall higher demand of use we’re now experiencing,” she said. “Many of those roads were also built before the standards of today. Technology and economic development have come a long way, and we’re extremely grateful for that and what the future holds for Seward County, but it has also required us the need for rehabilitation of our current roads and transportation system.”
Warden said many of the area’s industrial companies call Seward County home, including National Beef, National Carriers, the Arkalon Ethanol plant, Conestoga, the cotton warehouse, DCP National Helium, Groendyke Transport, Air Products, Sunflower Electric, Keating Tractor, Heifer Source, Seaboard, multiple dairies, feedlots and many family farms, and all of these utilize county roads.
“Also, we have to keep in mind Southwestern Heights is a part of Seward County with USD 483, and they are a rural school system,” she said. “Many young drivers and school bus drivers utilize those county roads to and from school. We recognize the crucial and continued growth and the safety for our citizens.”
Workers from the road consultant firm Kirkham Michael & Associates recently core sampled 137 miles of asphalt in the county, and they also evaluated issues such as rutting, washboards, pot holes, loose aggregate, dust control, drainage, the crowning, gravel quality and the new culverts that are needed on all roads.
“A large amount of work has gone into this and the need for our Road and Bridge department,” Warden said.
Current Landfill Supervisor and former Road and Bridge Director Brock Theiner gave an overview of the roads in the county. The county has a total of 683 miles of road, with 137 of those on asphalt, 446 on gravel and 100 on dirt roads.
Theiner then explained the high costs of getting some of the equipment necessary to maintain those roads.
“A new Cat motor grader, which we currently have nine at Road and Bridge, is $310,980,” he said. “Road and Bridge just purchased a new dozer. The dozer they previously had was from 1989. That new dozer was $495,000. They are currently utilizing that new dozer in the gravel pit. They’ve opened it back up. They’ve got the plant back up and going.”
Theiner emphasized the county has tried to save taxpayers money by purchasing gravel from Oklahoma pits and other measures.
“In today’s world, a 24-inch, 20-foot long culvert is $960, and we are yet to have a total number on culverts that are in the county,” he said. “Crack seal is $5,000 per mile. If the road is in bad enough shape like Bluebell, it’s going to be double that. It’d be $10,000 a mile. If we catch it quick enough, it’s just $5,000. To chip seal now, it’s $25,000 a mile. Currently, we’re paying $9 a ton or $180 per road. That’s just for the material, and we have labor and transport on top of that. Signs have gone up. Those things are just for the sign without a post and the labor to put it back up is up to $65 a sign now.”
As for work the county has done, Theiner said Road O was completely built from Bluebell Road to U.S. Highway 54, a stretch of four miles, and he described what it took to get that job done.
“The labor, the 3,269 hours that went into that, the 7,754 tons of Oklahoma road gravel, the 13,780 yards of caliche, 163,000 gallons of water to mix that material, and we are doing Road O with a product called Perma-Zyme,” he said. “This will harden the road base to where they say we won’t have to blade it but once a year, and it has a 10-year lifespan.”
Road P will have a similar product used on it, and Theiner said the Kansas Department of Transportation has contacted the county about a possible pilot projects.
“They are going to come out and see the differences in the roads and how we build them and how they hold up so they can help other counties, small communities in Kansas,” he said.
Warden said many times, manufacturing and industry companies coming to the county will locate to rural parts of the county.
“With dairies and feedlots, they can be miles away from asphalt, and those companies are going to KDOT and saying they need you to asphalt however many miles of road to that business,” she said. “Unfortunately, KDOT has the same issues the county does with funding. They are looking at the four miles we’re doing on these two roads with the Perma-Zyme and the one with Base One to determine if that could be a product they could offer when people are coming in for economic development purposes to say this is the way utilize gravel and dirt roads and help save money from having to lay asphalt.”
Many of the complaints about roads at previous town halls, Warden said, focused particularly on Road O and Road P and the conditions of those roads.
“This commission has put a very valiant effort in trying to improve the transportation system,” she said.
Warden said some motorists have been doing donuts and wheelies on Road O, causing the road’s top surface to be ripped off and scattering product everywhere, including ditches.
“We’ve literally had people working on the road and signs up that said, ‘Road Closed,’” she said. “We’ve literally had semi trucks that ignored those signs and ran over the top of them and rutted up the road when the product was supposed to sit for a 72-hour period of time.”
Warden said law enforcement even had to be called on to get control of the situation, but she added the county does not have enough law enforcement to provide around-the-clock control.
“It’s a little disheartening when we go to the effort and we spend taxpayer dollars to improve something, and we’re dealing with the issues we’re dealing with right now on Road O,” she said. “We’re certainly giving it a whirl, and law enforcement is trying to help us with the situation. The dust control we have found with this product is phenomenal, and the surface is hard enough that those people who are doing the donuts and the wheelies have actually left rubber on the dirt road.”
Theiner said Road O and Road P were chosen for work due to the traffic produced by Heifer Source and the ethanol plant and the concerns heard from constituents. He said the four miles done on Road O alone cost more than $450,000.
“That’s a lot for just four miles of dirt road,” he said.
The county likewise finished 28 miles of hot mix asphalt overlay work on roads, including Meade Lake Road, Panhandle Road, portions of the Satanta cutoff and Larrabee Road.
“We had a mill. I think the average mill was an inch. Meade Lake Road was a two-inch mill, three-inch overlay,” Theiner said. “We also had them come in and shoulder and stripe. In 2020, we overlaid Second Street at $125,003 per mile. This was $209,540 per mile just for the milling and overlaid. Shouldering was $4,400 per mile. Striping’s $3,125 per mile. We did get some Cost Share from KDOT on the Meade Lake overlay due to it being part of the industry going to the High Plains Dairy.”
Theiner said since 2020, the cost of everything has come up, and having the half-cent sales tax in place would mean an extra $2 million roughly for Road and Bridge to cover items like blacktops, culverts, bridges, equipment and anything else that goes into road infrastructure.
“We put out a 10-year plan to improve the infrastructure, so if the constituents decided to pass this, there would be a comprehensive 10-year plan put in place. Seward County has been assessed as to what is the priority to start with on blacktops and dirt roads,” he said. “There would be a big comprehensive plan put together as far as milling, overlaying, chip sealing. In ’26, they are going to be getting a crack seal machine.”
Culvert work, Theiner said, will include milling to the culverts’ approaches.
“We’ve got lots of plans for the millings,” he said. “The other thing about the half-cent sales tax is it will be a cost shared by residents and visitors through purchases spread over a wider area other than Seward County.”
To help pay for the HMA overlay, commissioners recently passed a $6 million bond. Warden said Kismet’s Main Street was originally set to be part of the project, but plans changed after town leaders announced water lines needed to be replaced there.
“It didn’t make sense to lay new asphalt on that if they were going to have to tear it up to put in new water lines,” she said.
Some constituents said passing the half-cent sales tax would require a large amount of voters in Liberal to say ‘yes,’ and Warden agreed, saying the issue will not pass without those voters.
“All of those businesses I named are in Seward County out in your rural areas,” she said. “They’re the ones using the roads and providing a tax base for all of the citizens of Seward County, which includes Liberal. They have to hear that message, or they won’t think about it.”
