The condition of roads and why a Dollar General is being built in the middle of a residential area was on the minds of several Ragland residents Monday at the Town Council meeting.

Donald Wayne Higginbotham had plenty to say about both issues, but mainly he wanted to know when McGuffie Drive was going to be fixed.

“It is a dangerous road and somebody is going to get hurt or killed up there,” Higginbotham said. “Y’all have tabled this thing, and the road is going to dry up and blow away before you get up there and fix it. We’ve been on y’all 10 years now and every time we come out here, y’all table it and don’t want to do nothing about it. But y’all can come down here in town, shut an alley down and build a Dollar General. How can y’all put a place in there that’s residential and it is not commercial when you got two churches sitting there and this business is going to be open on Sundays? These Christians out here are going to raise Cain about it. Y’all don’t think about this stuff. Y’all motion this and motion that. My child makes better decisions than that. I’m being honest with you. You need to grow up. You need to get out here and try to do something.”

Higginbotham said that on one occasion not to long ago, an ambulance blocked the narrow road for more than an hour. “Nobody could get in, nobody could get out,” he said. “We really need your help on this, and that needs to be a priority. I am asking y’all to help us.”

Higginbotham also complained about not being able to get in touch with the council member who serves his district, but before the council meeting was over, Higginbotham had the councilman’s telephone number.

Mayor Lanis White said some money was available from the 2-cent gas tax.

“The council and I are going to look at the condition of these roads and try and prioritize,” White said. “I’m sure McGuffie Drive would be in the top two or three, for sure. It could be our worst road, I don’t know. But you are right, and we hear you.”

McGuffie Drive has about 21 residences.

Other roads in Ragland the council agreed need work include 7th Ave., 4th Street, 17th Street, 21st Street, 23rd Street and McEwen Road.

Another resident upset that a new Dollar General is being built in a residential area of town is former councilman Bobby Davis.

“The Dollar General we have right now has been broken into two or three times this past year and has been broken into in past years,” Davis said after the meeting Monday. “Now what they will be doing is bringing this into a residential section where you have churches and people living on both sides of it. It’s still going to be broken into, in my opinion, and it’s going to be built in my backyard.”

Davis lives on 10th Street, and plans are to build the new Dollar General on 9th Street. He said this location will give thieves the opportunity to hide.

“When they go through my backyard and everyone else’s backyard, they are going to see things they will come back and steal,” Davis said. “They are able to put this business in the residential area because there are no zoning laws in Ragland. I want everybody to know that I am very displeased with what’s going on.”