HERMANN – Gasconade County Commissioners are requesting the public’s input before they move to lower speed limits on all county roadways.

Commissioners are considering requests to proceed with a blanket county-road speed limit of 35 miles-per-hour – a move that could be made in response to continued calls throughout the county for local officials to slow down the traffic.

County administrators again at Thursday’s session discussed the possibility of setting a lower speed limit. The matter was going to be included in a discussion with the county’s outside legal counsel.

In the meantime, commissioners want to know what residents think about the proposal.

“Let’s get some public input and go from there,” said Presiding Commissioner Tim Schulte, R-Hermann.

There are many topics to consider aside from changing the speed limits, currently set by state law at 50 miles-per-hour on all county roadways — unless a lower speed limit is posted.

Should the county petition the state for a change, it would involve a significant cost in terms of signage. There are 222 county roads covering 486 miles of Gasconade County.

The signs would amount to a substantial amount from the road department’s budget.

“You’re looking at $200,000 to put signs on the roads,” Schulte estimated.

Having the speed limit posted is key to enforcement, county officials said. Sheriff Scott Eiler at an earlier session said that deputies can’t write a ticket for speeding unless there are signs on the roads. Indeed, he told the commission that the sheriff’s department has issued no speeding tickets thus far this year.

The administrators’ discussion began with a speed limit of 25 miles per hour. But, Southern District Associate Commissioner Jerry Lairmore, R-Owensville, said he felt that limit was too low.

“Twenty-five, to me, is pretty slow. I’d rather see 35,” he said.

Indeed, Northern District Associate Commissioner Jim Holland, R-Hermann, said a 25-mile-per-hour limit on Boy Scout Road hasn’t had the intended effect.

“We’ve had 25 on Boy Scout Road for probably 20 years and it hasn’t done any good (in slowing traffic),” Holland said.

Holland said more thought needs to be put into the lower-speed-limit proposal before committing the kind of money that will be needed to install signs on the roads.

“We need to think about spending that kind of money,” he said. “I think we need to have more input.”

Also, he cautioned that setting a lower speed limit – and posting it won’t ensure safer driving.

“Keep in mind,” Holland said, “it’s not going to be a fix all.” Posting a speed limit is one thing; enforcing it is another, the commissioners acknowledged, noting that the sheriff’s department’s limited number of deputies can’t be patrolling county roads all the time.

To give some idea of what it might cost to place multiple speed limit signs on county roads, Lairmore pointed to the cost of signs on each end of a road. He said the county spends $40,000 a year on signs – mostly for replacing the popular ones being stolen off the poles.

“That’s a cost of doing business,” he said.

The commission will accept public comment on the proposal through September and possibly act on a speed-limit proposal in October.

Meanwhile, in other road-related matters, Lairmore reported that an issue that erupted a week earlier – damage to private property on Danz Road that occurred while a company was installing fiber optic cable for Fidelity – has been taken care of.

“I think we got the issue resolved,” said Lairmore, who left last week’s session and toured the area, meeting with residents and workers at the site.

At the previous commission meeting, three residents along Danz Road voiced concern about the situation, one threatening legal action against the county for what she claimed amounted to illegal taking of private property. The concern was that workers had left the county right-of-way and ventured onto private property to install the cable.

Damage was done along the work site. Lairmore confirmed that a fence was broken.

“It was fixed,” the associate commissioner said.

Even though he bore the brunt of the residents’ criticism a week earlier, Lairmore said he was pleased the commission was made aware of the situation.

“I’m glad they contacted us. I wish they had contacted us earlier,” he said.

One resident said the squabble with the contractor had been ongoing for four months.

Road Department crews were bracing to spend another weekend trying to return some of the highways on the southern end of the county to their pre-flash flood condition. Heavy rains at the beginning of August damaged many roads – the worst of the damage occurred in the southern portion of the county. The effort to repair the roads was dealt a big blow when several road graders were taken out of service for maintenance.

“We’re down to two graders, which isn’t good,” said Lairmore.

With those graders devoting most of their time to restoring Southern District roads, many of the roadways on the northern end of the county haven’t been graded for some time.

While the rain damage was less on the northern end than on the southern end, some of the north-county roads still have hazardous portions with deep cuts. The ditches remain full of gravel that was washed off during the downpours that hit the area. Pulling the ditches and returning the gravel to the roadway is the primary goal of the repair work.

The commission also approved this year’s property tax rate for county government. With total assessed valuation of real estate property up from last year and the value of personal property down, the property tax levy will remain unchanged on this year’s tax statement from the Collector’s Office.

The county’s Road-and-Bridge Fund levy remains at .2541 per $100 assessed value and the General Fund levy will be .1372 for a total county government levy of .3913 cents, down by a miniscule .0001 cent from last year’s rate.

County Clerk Lesa Lietzow said the increase in real estate value and the decrease in personal property value cancel each other.

“They offset each other so the tax rate is virtually unchanged,” she said.