Carroll County Judge David Writer ejected a local resident who was addressing the county’s quorum court during its regular meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 21.

Eric Scheunemann has addressed the court multiple times at recent meetings about the condition of Spring Valley Road, which runs from Passion Play Road to Mill Hollow Road near the eastern border of Eureka Springs. During the segment of the Nov. 21 meeting designated for public comments, Scheunemann said Writer, who before being elected county judge was the county’s road foreman, has refused to maintain the road.

Another local resident, Anna Mathews, had also addressed the quorum court earlier in the public comments about Spring Valley Road.

District 6 Justice of the Peace Craig Hicks responded to Mathews, saying he had been told that Spring Valley Road was a private road.

“And you can’t use taxes to pay to take care of private roads,” Hicks said.

Scheunemann presented JPs with what he described as documentation that the road is a county road and not a private road.

“I’ll tell you that I truly believe that if our county judge believed we could take care of that road, it would not be neglected,” Hicks said. “And I would hope everybody sitting at this table would trust in that as well.”

Scheunemann said the road has been maintained under previous county judges. He said Writer has given “one fraudulent excuse after another.”

“I would hope we could trust the county judge,” Scheunemann said. “But I would also point out that this has been maintained by, the last 25 years, the county judges without incident. My first 11 years there, I didn’t even know the county judge’s number or name. It was graded automatically at least once a year or twice a year. I never had to call. It wasn’t until within the last 10 years, with Mr. Sam Barr, that I would need to call, but it was graded the next day or within one week. Now, in the last three years since Mr. Writer showed up, first with the road department, now as county judge, giving one fraudulent excuse after another, all of which are documented here.”

Scheunemann cited a section of state code stating that the county judge is responsible for ensuring maintenance of county roads.

“So he’s capricious and arbitrarily, willfully disregarding the state code that requires him to maintain a county road system,” Scheunemann said.

Writer interjected at that point.

“OK, you go sit down,” he told Scheunemann.

“Thank you, sir,” Scheunemann replied.

“I’m tired of your lying,” Writer said. “You can tell one lie right after another.”

“It’s documented,” Scheunemann said.

Writer said he has a book that lists the county roads and Spring Valley Road is not listed.

As Scheunemann started to reply, Writer interrupted him.

“Goodbye. Get out. Go,” the judge said, raising his voice slightly.

“Thank you, sir,” Scheunemann said as he left the courtroom. “Happy Thanksgiving.”