Oak Circle Residents Want Officials to Listen

For Oak Circle residents in Monroe, it’s a rocky jarring ride down the road.

"I had to have a front end alignment change on my truck and my wife’s car," said Oak Circle resident Eugene Ellis.

Eugene Ellis has lived on oak circle for nearly a decade and says his road has been in terrible shape ever since.

And resident Ozious Thomas says the Ouachita Police jury has promised to fix the road for over a year, but still no results.

"But they keep saying they going to fix the street and they don't, I guess they going to wait until something happen bad and then they'll come fix it when it’s too late," said Thomas.

Residents say with bad roads and no drainage it doesn't take much to flood yards and nasty water can stand for days.

"And whenever it rains it stays around and it’s like a river," said Thomas

Shane Smiley represents residents in Oak Circle's district and says he knows about the problem.

Smiley says the road needs better drains and that could cost nearly a million dollars and that's money the jury doesn't have

"If we go in and just over lay the road, that’s not fixing the bigger problem which is flooding and in a few years we’ll be in the same situation again,” said Smiley

Smiley says the jury has applied for a Fema Hazard Mitigation grant that would cover the cost but he's just waiting for it to be approved.

"I don't see any problem with it getting approved, but when it goes to the federal government, their time table is maybe different," said Smiley

Residents say they're just ready to see results.

Smiley could not name an exact date when the funding will be approved to start the project on Oak Circle.

But he says he's optimistic it will start soon.