Residents warn widening Kelly Creek Road will increase speeds; engineers emphasize rumble strips and paved shoulders

Multiple residents and landowners told the commission that Kelly Creek Road's recent and planned work is a safety concern and that they were not adequately informed before crews appeared.

"Completely blindsided," resident Blake Wester said, criticizing the timing and outreach and warning that widening would invite more traffic and higher speeds. Jack Butler, who owns Butler Farms on Kelly Creek Road, told the commission the farm has experienced repeated incursions and that the property has seen a fatality and other crashes: "We've had in the last 4 years, we've had 1 fatality and... at least 3 other excursions into our fields." Residents urged speed enforcement, design adjustments, and a review of bridge constraints.

County engineer Clay Phillips responded that the project is a county-approved safety project focused on lane-departure countermeasures. He said the work adds a 2-foot paved shoulder (not a widened travel lane) with rumble strips placed 6–8 inches outside the white line and that the travel lane width will remain approximately 10 feet. "There [have been] 15 accidents occurred along that road in the last 5 years," Phillips noted, identifying lane departures as the primary crash type and saying rumble strips are an effective countermeasure.

Commissioners acknowledged the residents' concerns, asked staff to study specific safety changes (signage, speed considerations, guardrail placement, site visits at problem curves), and directed the county engineer to identify mitigation options that keep the project eligible for federal funding where applicable.