FAIRMONT – Doug Starcher doesn’t work for West Virginia’s Division of Highways, but he has been known to do on-the-fly road maintenance from time to time.
That’s so he can get into his driveway, he told Marion County commissioners Wednesday.
“I’m not elected,” he said. “I’m not anything.”
Starcher resides in a house his grandfather built in 1939, which sits along New Hill Circle, a road just outside the community of Worthington in outlying Marion County.
He doesn’t actually know who is officially responsible for the road.
Nor do his 28 neighbors. The DOH says Marion County. Marion County says the DOH.
And with no on-the-books owner, Starcher said, that means no regular maintenance.
Which also means tire-spinning snow in the winter – and axle-busting potholes all year round, as the only upkeep right now is coming from Starcher’s shovel and donations kicked in by his neighbors, to pay for gravel or a plow.
“Our road has holes you can drive a car into,” he said. “It’s in dire need of help.”
There are no drainage ditches, he said, and the recent spate of heavy rains across the region have battered the roadway into a condition that’s the worst he’s seen, he said.
“It’s beyond paving at this point,” he said.
Bad roads, he said, also make for dwindling property values.
“I can’t even sell my house,” Starcher said.
Commission President Ernie VanGilder said the county isn’t in possession of the equipment needed to properly maintain New Hill Circle.
“We’d have to double your taxes and maybe triple them,” VanGilder said, were the county to assume maintenance.
If the county can’t provide equipment for maintenance, Starcher said, he’s hoping the commission can kick in dollars while actually doing property assessments so home values reflect the state of the road.
That’s assuming Marion County takes over the road, he said.
A bill that would have streamlined the adoption process for an orphan road, as it were, didn’t make it off the floor during the most recent Legislative session this spring.
The commission president said he’d steer some phone calls to Charleston.
“We’ll put some pressure on,” VanGilder said. “We’ll see what we can do for you.”
“It’s someone’s responsibility,” Starcher said.
