On County Road 1 in Red Bay, some much-needed resurfacing is in progress. But there’s one section of the roadway that’s giving the highway department pause.

“There’s a little section that swings over into Mississippi,” county engineer David Palmer explained. “It’s in pretty bad shape.”

The road crosses back into Alabama about half a mile later. Considering how rough the road looks – and how many Franklin County residents use the road – Palmer said he had broached the topic with the Mississippi county commissioner in whose district the road lies.
“He said if I prepared something, he’d sign it, and we’d do a mutual agreement to do the work,” Palmer said. Palmer brought up the proposal in Monday’s county commission meeting. The Mississippi County commission would pay Franklin County to complete the work.

County attorney Roger Bedford said he would have to consider the legality of the proposal. “In the back of my mind, what kind of business license or insurance (regulations) does Mississippi have that are different from Alabama?” was one question Bedford mentioned.

Commissioners agreed Bedford should further research it but expressed they were cautiously in favor of Franklin County doing the work because if the county doesn’t, “it leaves a nightmare for 2,500 feet in the middle of project,” Commissioner Rayburn Massey said.

“I hate to leave it because people in Franklin County use it. They can’t get from Point A to Point B without going over it,” Palmer pointed out.

Commissioner Don Hastings added that it’s hard to even know, in that area, where exactly one has crossed over the state line.

“We’ll let Roger and David get together on that … and go from there and see what the legal standard is on that,” Probate Judge Barry Moore said.