July 30, 2026 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

I attended the July 30, 2026 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

All commissioners were present.

The only agenda item was “Old Shawnee Bend Road.”

This was a follow up meeting from the July 23, 2026, Commission meeting when the residents of Old Shawnee Bend Road advised the Commission that they were experiencing severe flooding problems on their gravel road. They had requested that the Commission consider paving a stretch of that road and installing culverts to alleviate the water damage.

Pat Wolf, the Road and Bridge superintendent, advised that the estimated asphalt cost of paving the road without including the loop at the bottom of the hill would be $32,000.

Shannon Howe, the County Engineer, stated that he had examined the roadway and he felt that putting the road at a grade and adding culverts would improve the situation. Paving the road would also result in less gravel filling up the ditch, but there would still be some issues with gravel because of the soil composition above the road.

Commissioner Dougan said he liked the idea of paving the road, but he wanted to stick to the letter of the law when it came to the county’s paving policy. Dougan suggested that building the road up and putting culverts in might help the problem without any paving.

The neighbors at the meeting said they had collected $21,000 for the project, but they had already invested thousands of dollars into remediating the damage caused by the flooding. The neighbors also pointed out that simply building the road up had been attempted before, but the downhill flooding water had just washed the gravel from the road and into their properties and the lake.

Presiding Commission Skelton wondered if there might be circumstances where it was necessary or made economic sense for a road to be paved as opposed to a road that would be paved as a “convenience paving”? Perhaps in those situations there could be some compromises concerning the paving policy?

The Commission voted 2-1 to pave a section of the gravel road on Old Shawnee Bend Road. Commissioner Dougan voted against it.