The three-and-a-half year dispute over Co-Op Road has taken another twist.
The Mississippi Supreme Court struck down two lower court opinions Thursday, sending the dispute over whether the county supervisors acted lawfully in abandoning the road back to Lowndes County Circuit Court.
“It looks to me like the Supreme Court said the circuit court judge was wrong in his ruling that we didn’t follow the rules in abandoning the road,” Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Harry Sanders said Thursday. “I guess (the landowners) who filed the suit could try again, but even if they do, it is our intention to close to road.
“Even if the judge were to rule that we didn’t comply with the rules and we have to re-open the road, all we would really have to do is start the process over and make sure we follow the procedures. The bottom line is we’re not going to maintain Co-Op Road as a county road.”
The landowners who filed the original suit to block the county’s abandonment of the road were Columbus attorney Hal McClanahan and Dennis and Julie Gartman.
McClanahan said he remains confident in his case.
“It really comes down to a technicality,” McClanahan said Friday morning.
According to the court’s ruling, the dispute began in September 2011, when C&G Railroad requested the board hold a public hearing about abandoning the road, which crossed two sets of its railroad tracks. Located off Military Road, Co-Op Road runs alongside the Lowndes County Co-Op in District 2.
Following the meeting, the board publicized its intent to abandon the road and crossing by placing an ad in the The Dispatch’s legal notices section for three consecutive weeks.
On Oct. 31, the board considered whether to abandon the crossing. Hearing no opposition, supervisors voted to abandon the crossing. The county placed barricades on the road soon after.
On Nov. 30, McClanahan and the Gartmans filed separate motions asking the board to reconsider its decision to close the road. On Dec. 5, the residents attended the board meeting to make their case and the board stayed its decision, encouraging the residents to work with the railroad to reach an agreement.
Finally, on Feb. 3, 2012, the residents filed a joint amended motion for reconsideration, asking that the board revisit its October 31 order at the next Board meeting scheduled for Feb. 6.
The board revisited its prior decision at that meeting, issuing a new order reaffirming its decision to abandon the crossing. The board did vote to remove the barricade and posted signs indicating that the county no longer maintained the crossing.
On Feb. 16, the residents filed a bill of exceptions in Lowndes County Circuit Court, challenging both the Oct. 31, 2011, order and the Feb. 6, 2012, order. The residents argued that both of the board’s orders should be reversed because the board failed to comply with the statutory requirements for abandoning a road.
The circuit court ruled in favor of the landowners’ striking down both the Oct. 31 and Feb. 6 board actions, saying the county violated due process procedures because it did not advertise the public hearing in the same manner as it advertised previous public hearings in the period leading up to its Oct. 31 meeting. The court noted previous public hearing notices had been placed in larger, free-standing newspaper advertisements rather than appearing as a small regular legal notice, which is how the abandonment ad ran.
The board appealed that ruling, saying the circuit court lacked jurisdiction in ruling on the board’s Oct. 31 order because it had been replaced with its Feb. 6 order.
On appeal, the court ruled in the county’s favor, agreeing that the Oct. 31 decision was outside the circuit court’s jurisdiction.
Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that while the appeals court erred in ruling that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction, the circuit court should rehear the case only on the basis of the action took during the board’s Feb. 6 ruling to determine if the county followed state code in abandoning the road.
McClanahan said it is simply a matter of including the information on the due process issue into a amended “bill of exceptions.”
“We didn’t learn about the problem with the ads until after we have filed the bill of exceptions,” McClanahan said. “The Supreme Court was basically saying that, in order to consider that part, it has to be a part of the bills of exception. The circuit court can’t consider anything that isn’t in that. So it’s an easy fix. We’ll amend the bills of exception to include the information about the ads, which I feel is very relevant.”
For the time being, at least, Sanders said the road will continued to be closed as far as the county is concerned.
“It’s closed, but not barricaded,” Sanders said. “The thing is, the road was never county property to begin with. The county never had a deed to that road. What we have decided, and what we continue to say, is that we are not going to maintain Co-Op Road as a county road. If (residents) want to have access to that road, they need to take it up with the railroad. It’s their business.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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