Stephens Co. To Consider Abandoning Part of Crump St.

Stephens County Commissioners are going to consider abandonment of part of a road in order to help with keeping the property at the end of the road clean.

John Vance appeared before commissioners on Tuesday to talk about the end of Crump Street, which is located off of South Pond Street.

Vance owns the property at the end of the street, where there used to be houses and trailers, that he said did become an eyesore over time.

“I got cited by the Marshal and came to a meeting in Magistrate Court last month,” said Vance. “I told the Marshal it is an ongoing thing. It is just a place to dump stuff and the houses are gone … they are falling apart.”

Vance said that he has been working to clean up the property, but people continue to dump things there, making it hard to keep up.

He said he is also concerned that the end of the street would become a place where other bad things could happen as well.

“Sooner or later, something bad is going to happen,” said Vance, adding it is dark and people can get out of sight.

“Nothing good can come from that,” said Vance.

Stephens County Marshal Tom Bennett said he agrees with those concerns about the end of Crump Street and Vance suggested closing off the road so that people could not get back there.

According to Stephens County Attorney Brian Ranck, the most appropriate way for the county to do that would be to abandon the end of Crump Street surrounded by Vance’s property, removing that part of the road from public maintenance.

Ranck said that would make it Vance’s responsibility and he could block off that end of the dead-end street, keeping people from getting back to the property where the dumping is taking place.

Vance said he does have concerns about abandonment because he says he wants to continue cleaning up the property and hopefully re-utilize it in some way in the future.

“If I abandon the road, can I give it back to you?” asked Vance. “Eventually, somebody can use that property.”

County officials said that he could apply in the future to have that end of the road re-accepted into the county maintenance system if it were abandoned.

However, there would be no guarantee the county would re-accept it.

County officials said they will begin the formal abandonment process and it will come back before the county as soon as next month.