In spite of the fact that the Georgia Department of Transportation has given final approval to design plans and location for Exit 14 off I-985, residents in the Martin Road corridor are not allowing the issue to be put to rest.
Opponents of Exit 14 turned out for the Hall County Commission work session on Tuesday afternoon.
Quailwood resident Brad Farrow and three others from the area signed up to speak during the public comment portion of the work session in opposition to the GDOT announcement.
Farrow asked commissioners to be added to the Thursday voting session agenda because, “we have a number of people who would like to speak to the issue and they all work so they can’t be here until later in the evening.” (County Commission work sessions begin at 3 p.m.; voting sessions begin at 6 p.m.)
Commission Chairman Dick Mecum told Farrow and the others, “The County Commission has little or nothing to do with this issue.”
Commissioner Scott Gibbs added, “We can write a hundred letters to the DOT (and) it doesn’t matter.”
“We’ve already been to the DOT to discuss this issue and talked to the commissioner on it…and basically,” Mecum explained while shaking his head, “it’s a done deal, it’s over.”
“The only thing that we have to do is ‘clean up the mess’, so to speak,” Mecum said.
“We’re determined to stand for what is right,” Farrow averred. “We think this is wrong to empty this exit into a residential area. We’re not going to accept a ‘No’; we’re going to continue to fight.”
Farrow said an online petition opposing the exit’s location was gathering signatures as part of their appeal. “Two hundred and eighty three as of this afternoon,” Commissioner Billy Powell said, aware of the petition drive.
“Unfortunately the whole thing was created long before anybody up here was here,” Commissioner Scott Gibbs told Farrow. Commissioners were told the concept of adding the new exit to the interstate dates back to 1999 or possibly 2000, before many of the homes along Martin Road were constructed.
“And it would have already been done had the federal government any funding,” Gibbs said referring to the recent economic downturn.
“But once that thing opened up (federal funding for transportation infrastructure), I guarantee you GDOT is moving at break-neck speed,” Gibbs said.
Mecum thanked Farrow for his efforts but conceded, “For us to stop it, we can’t.”
