You may be confused about the dollars allocated to the OPA each year by the County for road work. These dollars have nothing to do with the patching we are discussing.

Yes, the Board has apparently been "discussing" this issue for some time, all the while our OPA fees are being used to some extent to pay for work the County is obligated to do. No one seems to know to what extent, although I did hear something about 400 road cuts.

I attended the water and sewer advisory board meeting today. Everything I have posted here was confirmed.

For example, at the meeting one of the Public Works managers stated that now that this issue was becoming a "political" issue they would look at a quick solution. Why does it take attendance at a public meeting by someone like myself to make this a "political" issue? The OPA Board should have made this a "political" issue some time ago.

The OPA Board and the Public Works Advisory Board have both failed to adequately look after the interests of Ocean Pine tax payers on this issue.

At one point the Advisory Board chairman said OPA could send bills to the County, but this seemed strange when the County Public Works people at the meeting didn't even know OPA was doing any patching that was the responsibility of the County. Also stange in that the Advisory Board is just that - advisory. It was also obvious that the OPA General Manager was not aware of any option to bill the County. The County guys said they would look into the idea of OPA billing the County for interim temporary patching. When asked if OPA could bill for all previously done patches, there was some muttering but no conclusion.

Ultimately this rests with the County Commissioners, yet no formal complaint has ever been sent to the Commissioners as a body, by either the Advisory Committee or the OPA Board, as far as I could tell.

If you would like a full brief on the facts surrounding this issue, I suggest you start with a call to Mr. Ross, head of the County Public Works Department. He seems knowledgeable on the issue, even if unable to resolve it over the past couple of years.

as the parties fight over who should fix and pay for it.

Joe, there is no fight over who should fix and pay for it. None whatsoever. The County Public Works Department freely admits it is their responsibility to fix the cuts and to pay for same. In fact, the County collects the fees for the cuts at the time a construction permit is issued. Thus, they have been collecting funds to do the patching but not doing the patching in a timely manner - unless nearly two years and counting is considered timely.

In a nutshell, the County has failed in its obligations while the OPA Board and the Advisory Committee have done little more than listen to, and apparently accept, excuses for a very long time.

Probably the last thing we want to do is have OPA take this over.