ORRINGTON, Maine — One or more Mill Creek Road residents have taken a more colorful approach in protesting the condition of their road.
Flowers were planted in several potholes along the now dirt road Thursday.
“I think it’s awesome,” said Jesse Schwarcz, whose parents, Mary Ann and Arthur, live on the road. “It gets so tiring to drive through those potholes and hit the bottom of every single one and swerve all the biggest ones. If they’re not going to grade the road and keep it maintained, then we can at least enjoy the flowers and not drive through the potholes.”
When a beaver dam broke in March, it flooded Swetts Pond Road and destroyed areas of that road. A machine was brought in to tear up the pavement on that road. After the crews were done, the pavement on Mill Creek Road was also torn up ahead of schedule, according to residents.
Mill Creek Road is scheduled to be repaved and widened in July, said Town Manager Paul White. The nearly one-mile-long, dead-end road has become a dirt road for longer than expected, according to residents.
“Every time you get rain and people drive on it, you get potholes,” said Dick Grindle, who lives on the road. “It would be nice if they came in and did something with the potholes if we have to stay with all dirt for a length of time.”
White said the road will be paved and widened sometime in July. It’s up to FairPoint Communications to move its wires to new utility poles, he said.
“Once that’s done, the old poles can be removed and we can do ditching prior to the paving,” said White, adding that he was told about the flowers in the potholes earlier on Friday. “The whole road will be paved.”
Residents of the road are upset that little has been done to fix the pothole problems for the last couple of months.
“It’s getting worse. They need to come back in and grade it if they’re not going to be putting asphalt on it for a while,” said Grindle. “They need to do something with it. There’s going to be more and more potholes.”
Grindle added that he understands the town may have depleted funds due to the beaver dam break.
So far, no one has taken credit for planting the flowers in the potholes.
“No one’s taken credit, but I can narrow it down,” said Grindle, adding that about 13 homes are occupied on the road.
“It could be a number of people,” said Schwarcz. “It looked like there was some nice dirt in there mixed in with dirt from the ditches, too. Someone spent some time with a shovel to plant flowers up there.”
That’s funny.
I LOVE IT!!! LOL
Lovin’ it!
This is absolutely hilarious and I love it!!!!!!
Good old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity. Life gives you lemons make lemonaide. I love it!!
Now go up to Howards farm and gets some cow crap and keep it smelling good all summer.
…..
Perfect!!
Can someone fax this pic to the governor’s office?
He’s too busy stomping his feet and refusing to issue the bonds for road and bridge repairs that voters have already approved.
Come on Tyke, the blame for the condition of this road must be Jimmy Carter’s fault. Hope you feel better connecting Lepage to this local problem. I live 2 miles from a government road. We have a neighborly event when the pot holes get too big and get together and fix it. Occasionall someone will blame new construction or logging for road damage but overall we have a good time.
Mill Creek is a town road. The town is responsible for the maintenance.
If you’re waiting for FailPoint to get around to doing something, Mr. White, you’re going to be there a while.
We got lots of the potholes up here in Washington county. Nobody up here is going to go into the road to try and plant a flower either.. LOL
Good thinking. It’s much more pleasant to avoid them that way.
If big Paulie gets his way none of our roads will be paved.
The government paving roads is just more socialism, doncha know.
Mill Creek is a town road. The town is responsible for the maintenance.
haha. love it.
Awesome! I absolutely love it! Im sure you can all agree – how many times have you shredded a tire, broke a strut, needed a front end alignment, and so on? Many of our roads are shameful! Good one… I’d like to see more of this :)
I am in surprise that the article isn’t stating that there is a man hunt under way for the persons responsible for the vandalism of the road. Creative way to to draw attention to a problem. After all most of us pay taxes for a reason right? One being drivable roads.
Where are the TV networks when you need them?
The flowers look like annuals. That means the person who planted them has hope for paving or at least re-grading in the future. Otherwise, they would have planted perennials, figuring they’d be there permanently.
I wonder if whomever planted the flowers will send the bill for their purchase to the Orrington town manager.
Was that done by a union flower planter?
should make a big statement, plant pot plants in the pot holes..he he he
love it!!!!!
I thought we voted for transportation bond funds for roads and bridges. Oh that’s right our Dear Governor stopped all bonds.
Mill Creek is a town road. The town is responsible for the maintenance.
Normal maintenance should not be part of a bond. Should we borrow money to mow the lawn by the side of the road?
too bad they cant get the Maine antique tractor club to level the road for free. Seems they have tractors that would love to put them to work. All you need a drags that they can pull.
That’s really witty. Great idea.
I can see small towns with budget problems having roads like this, and although i dont particularly think it needs to be this bad, at least there may be an excuse. However i dont believe that Bangor or Brewer or many of the bigger cities have the same excuse. We all recently just saw the rediculous contruction finish over the Burleigh Rd Bridge, where the city was nice enough to force drivers to put extra miles on their cars and use more gas, because they were not capable of seeting up a lighted situation in which they allowed a single lane to have traffic moving in both directions as they did on 6 mile Falls a few years back. Instead the road and bridge repair took an entire month to complete. I have seen the city make beautiful sidewalks near Husson college only to leave the roads look like a mine field in the same location. When i har things like 40 million dollar bonds for roads and infrastructure, my thoughts go to families that have to budget their income to make ends meet without waste and i wonder why my government cannot do the same thing and be accountable for it.
Too funny !!!! I love it !!!!
Very creative, yet harmless way to make a point!
Lower taxes! Cut government spending!
So funny, nice to see that some people still have a sense of humor! lol
An infamous grader operator in Baxter Park during the day, who’s nickname was “High Blade” once said “Them ain’t potholes, they’re bird baths”.
As Ladybird Johnson used to say, “We’ve have to beautify our highways!”
What s novel idea!!! Deserves some kind of appreciation award for all the hard work planting the flowers, beautifying potholes!!
Wicked cleva!
great job!!