TROY – Troy’s mayor got the opportunity cast a tie-breaking vote four times Monday night during the Board of Aldermen meeting.

Ranging from the mundane of how items get on the agenda and an appointment to a city board to longstanding controversial issues like repairs to private roads and a new subdivision, the board of aldermen disagreed more than they agreed.

Of the four tie votes, arguably the most significant involved the approval of a site plan for a new 101-home subdivision.

Originally proposed at the August meeting, the board tabled its decision then and hosted a contentious workshop on the subdivision a week ago in which details were discussed.

Several residents of the West Hampton subdivision, which is located adjacent to the 46-acre parcel of land Cannon Realty wants to develop spoke against the subdivision during citizen comment.

Their opposition, plus the board’s desire to hire an engineer to review stormwater runoff estimates provided by the developer prompted the delay.

Board member Rachel Dunard proposed tabling the vote until the new engineer, who the board hired later in the meeting, could sign off on the previous estimates.

That motion to table though led to a 3-3 vote, and Sconce voted against it, prompting a second motion to approve the site plan which passed 4-0, with Dunard and Dennis Detert abstaining.

“I just don’t think that we can turn this down legally. We’re going to get sued,” Alderman Quentin Laws said, adding the city should be spending funds on a waterflow study instead of attorney fees. “I think we are way overstepping if we continue down this road.”

Detert, who lives in the adjoining West Hampton subdivision, said he simply can’t ignore the large number of concerns from citizens living there and who spoke at the meeting.

“A lot of citizens got a lot of concerns. The biggest problem is we’ve got to turn our backs to all the citizens …that hurts, it really does,” Detert said. “I still understand that I think it’s going to be a good development. I really do. But I just understand the people’s concerns.”

Detert, Dunard and Terri Huffman voted to table the approval in the original vote with Harold Horner, Laws and Mitch Bryant voting against the delay.

City Administrator James Knowles reminded the board they will have another chance to approve or reject the project when the developer submits the final plat to the city.

Dana Avenue

Also at the meeting, the issue of a collapsing culvert on a private street that has been discussed at board meetings since December of 2024 finally received some resolution.

Again, Sconce broke the 3-3 tie with a no vote to the city assuming the costs to repair the culvert on Dana Avenue. This time, Aldermen Horner, Dunard and Detert supported the repairs estimated at $50,000 while Huffman, Laws and Bryant opposed it.

Detert first brought the issue to the board’s attention at its December meeting in 2024, five months prior to his election. With his daughter living in one of the three houses on the private street, he argued repeatedly not replacing the culvert created a serious safety issue as it caused flooding issues that isolated residents.

And while he had previously contended the street wasn’t private, he continued to maintain at the most recent meeting the damage to the culvert was caused by the city’s infrastructure.

“The city uses this whole system over here, the stormwater infrastructure, and it has destroyed this over the years,” Detert stated. “The city has routed all of their water through their culvert, which has caused damage, but the city doesn’t want to do anything to repair it. She’s been stranded once this year. Luckily, she works from home. But if there’s a medical emergency, if there’s a fire, then what?”

Knowles disputed Detert’s claim the city intentionally directs water through the culvert.

“There are no subdivisions in the city that are piping the water into this culvert or into this ditch. This is a natural drainage area that exists,” he said. “All that water has just been naturally draining there for longer before any of us have been around, so, you know, there’s this continued statement that the city created this problem, it did not.”

Knowles said the problem is the culvert is old and simply needs to be replaced because of natural wear and tear.

“Water is not making the culvert collapse. Oxidation is, and that’s just natural,” he said. “It’s an old rusting culvert. Not the speed of the water, not the amount of the water. Just time plus iron, oxidation, and it’s rusting. If it was just sitting in the middle of a field, it would rust it. If there was no water in it, over time it would rust it.”

Miscellaneous

Also at the meeting, the board:

• Appointed Dan Colbert to fill one of two vacant positions on the Planning and Zoning board. Dunard questioned Sconce as to why the other seat wasn’t being filled when at least two other citizens had expressed interest in serving. Dunard, Huffman and Detert voted against Colbert’s appointment, creating a 3-3 tie that Sconce broke.
• By a 5-1 vote, approved the hiring of Woodard and Curran to provide the city on-call engineering services, such as confirming the engineer’s stormwater runoff estimates regarding the Whiskey Creek subdivision. Alderman Bryant voted against the measure.
• During a workshop prior to the regular meeting, Dunard questioned recent safety issues with the street department. Street supervisor Jeff Burkemper discussed general safety prevention measures and assured Dunard the specific instances she mentioned had been discussed with the employees and wouldn’t be repeated in the future.