Editor, Gazette-Journal:

In spite of Lewie Lawrence’s obsession about proving state roadside ditches aren’t VDOT’s responsibility, they exist to drain state roads and are part of the commonwealth’s infrastructure. Even VDOT doesn’t deny that.

Lewie Lawrence, Executive Director of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission, is still wasting grant money trying to prove that failing state roadside ditches are the responsibility of the property owners whose lands they cross. In the November MPPDC minutes, he is reported as saying, “The goal is to collect all public records for future use to help understand who owns every inch of the drainage system and who should be responsible for the maintenance of the roadside ditch on the property. MPPDC staff will organize the data to fit into a database.”

Lawrence doesn’t confine his ditch obsession to the roadside. He sent a contract to Draper Aden Associates to create maps identifying ditche...