Residents of Indian Hill Road attended the Brown County Commissioners meeting on June 17 to question the closure of a railroad crossing which resulted in the road becoming a dead end.

The crossing that was closed is near the end of Indian Hill Road that connects to State Road 45.

At a Brown County Commissioners meeting in April, Brown County Highway Superintendent Mike Magner said that Indiana Rail Road had been discussing the crossing and what to do with it for about two years, then formally requested that the county close it.

Magner said Indiana Rail Road could have bypassed the county commissioners if they did not agree to it, since it is a public safety issue because of sight lines. At the June 17 commissioners meeting, Magner said that there had been a recent push from the federal level to rework railroad crossings that had trouble with sight distance or clearance problems, but that should not affect any other crossings in the county.

One property owner who lives near the crossing learned about the closing by reading a story about on the Brown County Democrat’s Facebook page. She said she hadn’t been notified before then.

Attorney for the county, Veronica Schilb, said on June 17 that because the county and the railroad company came to an agreement on the closing, no public hearing was required before it was closed.

Commissioner Diana Biddle said that the commissioners did not initiate the closure; Indiana Rail Road did. “This actually came to us, not to the commissioners directly, but Indiana Rail Road reached out to our attorneys and the attorneys brought us the information,” she said.

Indian Hill Road resident Rick Hoke attended the virtual commissioners meeting on June 17. “My big thing is I would have liked to have at least been asked about it,” he said.

Laura Shuck also attended the meeting. She has lived on Indian Hill Road for more than 35 years.

“You may not have had a legal obligation to notify the residents, but since we’re your constituents, it doesn’t seem fair that we learned about it in the newspaper,” she said.

She expressed concern for one particular property owner who lives at the bottom of a hill that is dangerous to drive on in the wintertime, and now, that’s her only option for leaving her home.

“I would not put my family in danger going up that hill in the snow,” Shuck said.

Biddle said that Magner would be reaching out to that property owner. “We’ll see what we can do to help accommodate her if the weather is poor,” Biddle said.

Shuck asked if the commissioners do not notify people of changes to their roads if they are not legally required. Both Biddle and commissioners President Jerry Pittman said that they were under the assumption the railroad company had notified those living on the road.

“We do if we’re the ones taking the action. But the commissioners were not the ones taking action,” Biddle said.

“Generally, the person who initiates is the person who provides notice. … I was under the mistaken assumption that the railroad had done the notification. I think we all were. We did not find out, obviously, until later as you did that some people had not been notified.”

Closing the crossing will also impact the Tecumseh Trail. Magner said that the county was also working with a trail group to install a pedestrian crossing over the railroad.

Included in the settlement agreement with Indiana Rail Road was the county receiving $3,700 for signage, barricades and other expenses incurred from closing that portion of the road.

“I would imagine there will be concrete barricades placed at State Road 45 so that people are not driving down there with no place to turn around. We’re already having some trespassing issues,” Biddle said.

“I was alerted late last night (June 16) and early this morning by a property owner that people were trespassing on their property to get back to the railroad crossing. It is not OK to park on the road and walk back there.”

Biddle said the county will determine if that dead-end section of Indian Hill Road will be vacated sometime in the future. “If we would do that, we would reserve an easement for the Tecumseh Trail so they can continue to use that as a trail to go back there,” she said.

She directed anyone else who had concerns about the closure to send them to the commissioners’ email address: [email protected].

“Since there was no one here (at the April meeting) to object or discuss or have any questions about it, that’s why I voted in favor of moving forward with it. I had no idea that there was a possibility of people not being notified,” Pittman said.

“Whether it is required legally or not, they should have notified all of the affected parties in that area. I certainly would not have acted on it if I had any idea that they had not been notified. … It’s only common sense you wouldn’t do this without giving people an opportunity to address the situation. I’m upset as much as anybody about how this has turned out. My apologies for the lack on our part, but that’s the assumptions I acted on and here we are.”

Another property owner on Indian Hill Road asked the commissioners if they had looked into repairing the road or bringing the crossing up to code.

“Because it involves a railroad, I know Indiana Rail Road has looked at it. We have not spent engineering dollars to look at it. … If you give me a week or two, I can probably get you an engineering answer,” Biddle said.