Guthrie County leaders are discussing County-owned culverts, after two property owners made modifications to them, claiming to not know about the County’s requirement to have a permit to do so.

Supervisor Everett Grasty says ignorance is no excuse, and wants County Engineer Josh Sebern to more heavily enforce the permit policy moving forward. “Let’s say somebody in (Supervisor) Jerry’s (Caraher) area has a tube and they decide to throw a piece of plastic on there, to get a wider driveway. They go ahead and do it themselves, which they pay for themselves, and then you find out they put plastic on the end of a metal tube, are you gonna just say ‘don’t do that again’, or ‘you didn’t understand the policy, so that’s okay’. That’s the problem, having one person do it right, then another person down the road says ‘why do I have to follow the rules if these other people didn’t’.”

Sebern says there’s more than one way to address individuals who forego the permit process. “There’s a couple ways of looking at it. One, you did it wrong, and you’ve got to redo it at your cost, or we will. Second, that’s wrong, and if or when that fails, it’s going to be on you.”
For more information about the permit process, call or stop by the Engineer’s office.