The question of who is responsible for repairing a private county road that a group of neighbors believe is being damaged by a school bus has them perplexed.

Marion Cummings, Sarah Burroughs and Jerry Grandson are residents of a neighborhood three miles south of the county line on Mississippi 3. They’re getting  the cold shoulder from the Vicksburg Warren School District over mending their road, which is the only path to their neighborhood from the highway.

A fourth neighbor is the school bus driver, who was the first to settle in the area 26 years ago. She asked to remain anonymous.

They all share in the expense of maintaining the road that leads to their homes, but the cost has mounted due to the weight of the bus, the three neighbors say. They believe the county or the schools should ante up.

County crews can legally create or maintain “turnarounds” on private property when formally requested by school officials. General maintenance is not allowed.

The bus driver disagrees with her three neighbors about what’s caused damage. She believes rutting in a 20-yard stretch of road from the entrance to a curve is caused by an overflow of the creek that runs parallel to the road, just five yards away.

“When it rains, the creek overflows,” she said. “When it overflows, it doesn’t matter what goes through it. It’s going to rut.”

The dispute began just after the start of the school year.

Repairs were done in early August and it had cost all five neighbors $640 for four loads of gravel and $258 to spread it.

Cummings, Burroughs and Grandson said they had asked the bus driver to park the bus across the street for a few days until the road had dried from repairs.

They said she declined, citing orders from the school district’s transportation supervisor David Keen to continue to park the bus in her yard.

The school district allows her and other drivers who live far from schools to take their buses home. The driver, an 18-year veteran, said it is more convenient for her because the route begins just less than a mile north of her home.

After Keen was contacted in mid-August, he declined comment, saying only, “The driver is an employee of the Vicksburg Warren School District.”

The neighbors argue that the 20 yards of damaged gravel road that leads to each of their homes needs to be re-repaired at the expense of the school district since they believe it was damaged by school property.

“We feel the school board should put the gravel down on our road,” said Cummings. “Everyone here has the right of way, but we don’t think it’s right for her to drive the school bus through and damage our road we had just fixed.”

The most damage on the road is on the curve in front of Burrough’s home, where the ground appears soft and sunk in.

“I’m getting all the damage in my front yard,” said Burroughs, who lives in the first home just after the entrance. “This is not the first time this has happened, but we’re tired of it.”

Jerry Boland, president of the Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees, said Wednesday that school officials were awaiting a recommendation of the superintendent.

Superintendent Dr. James Price said, “We cannot legally do anything to that private road.” He also said the district does not have any property near the bus driver’s home to allow her to park the bus at a different location. “We do not get into community issues,” he said.

The neighbors also contacted District 2 Supervisor William Banks, who also said the county cannot take any action unless it has received a request from the school board. “They make a recommendation and then we vote on it at a meeting,” he said.

In addition, Banks noted the school board could declare the private road a turnaround, and that might lead to repairs. Price, however, said he doesn’t think the turnaround description is appropriate.

*

Contact Manivanh Chanprasith at mchan@vicksburgpost.com