After months of discussion and argument, the Eutaw City Council at its April 24th meeting approved spending part of the $50,000 in its budget for road and street repairs in Branch Heights. The City will contract with the Perry County Commission to make basic repairs and fix potholes in the streets.

Branch Heights is a sub-division of public housing administered by the Greene County Housing Authority and constructed with HUD funds in the 1970’s. The area was annexed into the City of Eutaw in 2003 with a promise that HUD would repair the roads, which has not happened.

Since that time the City of Eutaw and the Greene County Commission have disputed over who owned the roads and who should be required to maintain them.

City Attorney Mike Smith warned the Eutaw Council that by agreeing to repair the roads, it was accepting responsibility and liability for the roads including the potential to be sued for accidents caused by the condition of the roads. Smith pointed out that it would cost between $1 and $4 million to completely repair all of the roads and streets in Branch Heights and by committing to some repairs, the City might be obligating itself to an expense it could not afford.

Smith also advised that the City Council could proceed with utilizing its funds for street repairs knowing that its was taking a risk in doing so.

Councilman Joe Powell, who represents Branch Heights on the Council, and other council members, argued that the City had implicitly accepted responsibility for the roads when it annexed Branch Heights into the City of Eutaw.

A compromise effort to give city funds to the Greene County Housing Authority to fix the roads fell through when Attorney Smith pointed out that the City had not created the county housing authority and therefore could not fund it to fix the roads. Efforts to merge and unify the City and County Housing Authorities have also failed in recent months.

Powell insisted over objections from Mayor Steele and reservations of Legal Counsel that the City Council approve funding for the road repairs. In the past month, the Democrat reported that residents of Branch Heights had taken matters in their own hands and were fixing some of the worst potholes themselves. By majority vote the Council approved using its funds for the repairs