By Martin Couch
There was a concerned citizen who stepped to the microphone on Thursday night to speak to the Bryant City Council about speeding through private property at the Fairways apartment complex on Hurricane Creek Country Club Estates.
"We've closed the gate from[more] 7 to 8 in the mornings and in the afternoons to keep the kids safe," Chuck Anderson of 2701 Birdie Lane in the Fairways apartments said to the Council. "We're still having a lot of traffic problems in the afternoon. I have watched cars cutting through from the overpass all the way around to Woodland Park Road."
Anderson was at the Council meeting in September and spoke about the same situation to get attention drawn to the problem.
"As a father who has a son who rides the school bus, I am worried that speeders cutting through are going to get someone hit. I've seen them run through there as high as 40 and 50 miles an hour and it's posted 10 miles per hour. And I have had people tell me that I can't close a public road by shutting the gate, but it's not public, it's private. Lindsey Properties owns it. I don't want to be the one to come to the Council one day to say that someone got ran over."
After listening to Anderson's comments, later in the meeting the Council adopted ordinance 2010-27 by a 5-2 vote that states: "Traffic control devices means all signs, signals, markings and devices placed or erected, 1) a public body or official having jurisdiction pursuant to federal, state or local law for the purpose or regulating, warning, or guiding traffic and 2) by or at the direction of the owner or manager of commercial property or apartment complexes for the purpose of regulating, warning or guiding traffic."
In other words, the Bryant Police Department has jurisdiction on this particular private property and can issue tickets. The fine shall be the same infraction committed on public property.
