Rancher does own road work, sends Pima County the bill

Andy Smallhouse earlier this summer turned left at Frustrated, went right on through to Fed Up and kept going until he landed on Doing Something About It. The 38-year-old rancher, whose family has run the Carlink Ranch out in Redington, on the far northeast side, for five generations, said it's never been easy getting the county to maintain the seven or so miles of dirt road it's responsible for out there. But with increasingly limited transportation-maintenance dollars, it's been all but impossible. Smallhouse said he had at least three meetings with the county, even though it's almost a two-hour drive each direction. "We get a lot of promises, and then nothing ever happens," he said. He said that he and the other ranching families pay taxes but get very little back in services. And in order to maintain their businesses, whether they're selling cattle or hay or lumber, they've got to have roads to haul it on. "It got to the point that people wouldn't buy my hay because it was tearing up their vehicles." So Smallhouse did what any self-reliant rancher type might do. He rounded up two workers and graded the road himself with the equipment he uses to repair the roads on his own ranch. And then he sent a bill to the county for $2,530 under the heading: Emergency road grading...more