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Carroll County resident says road was reclassified privately without notice, cites FOIA denials
Summary
Resident Susan Barber told the court her road — long maintained by the county and shown in GIS — was declared private without notice or documented legal process; she said repeated FOIA/GRAMA requests for records were denied or not produced, raising safety and ambulance-response concerns.
Susan Barber, a Carroll County resident and property owner, told the quorum court she believes a road that had been maintained by the county for decades was declared private under the current administration without notice or documented legal process.
Barber said she filed a FOIA request for eight items related to the road and received only one response; she quoted the county’s reply that the office “does not have record of this request” for the others. "Under FOIA, the legal custodian must produce public records regardless of where they are stored," Barber said, and she asked the court to examine the records used to change the road’s status.
She described earlier official maintenance and FEMA repairs, a 60-foot easement plotted in 1980, and a 1988 court order approving a cemetery found during a later effort to catalog records; she said missing historical court records complicate establishing how earlier road-related decisions were made. Barber said the situation has caused vehicle damage, hesitancy from visitors and at least one delayed ambulance response.
Court members discussed the statutory and ordinance framework for taking roads into the county system during a later presentation by the road department; county officials noted that state and county law require roads to be recorded and that prior informal practices — such as affidavits — were later found invalid by the attorney general. The court did not issue an immediate remedy on Barber’s behalf during the meeting but discussed processes residents can use, such as petitions, hearings and court orders.
Barber closed by saying her purpose was to bring the concerns to the court’s attention and to ensure the public is aware. The court did not state a formal timeline for reviewing her specific records request at the meeting.
