SEMINOLE, Ala. — Danny Hardy of Hunting Club Road said this week that Seminole is “plum-nearly” out of the state. He and 31 other homeowners who live on the half-mile dirt road feel like they’re “plum-nearly” out of luck as well as far as ever getting their road paved.

“The only time we see a politician is during election time,” said Hardy, who moved onto Hunting Club Road in the summer of 1995.

What has the residents of Hunting Club Road miffed is that the Baldwin County Highway Department’s Fiscal Year 2009 Strategic Plan called for Hunting Club Road to be paved. The target date for the project: March 1, 2010.

It didn’t come to pass.

County Engineer Cal Markert said this week that the Hunting Club Road paving project has been bumped back to 2011 due to a lack of funding.

“Hopefully, it will be ready for 2011,” Markert said, adding that there are utility and right of way issues as well in connection with Hunting Club Road’s paving.

“As much gravel and dirt as they’ve hauled in here they could pave that road and save money,” said Toni Woodall, who has lived on the dirt road for 25 years. She is just one of several residents on the road who have breathing and respiratory problems.

Charles Crutchfield, who said he has asbestosis, notes that driving the county road grader back and to from Robertsdale to Seminole probably costs as much in the long run as paving the road.

“They don’t send a road grader out to grade the road until just before a rain,” said Crutchfield, who notes that’s one of the surest means of forecasting a rain.

Hunting Club Road residents say it’s the dust when it’s dry and bogging down and potholes “that deep” when it rains. Crutchfield said this week he had to put ball joints on his pickup the other day due to the potholes.

Rodney Bowser and Cody Batterson are about to build new houses on Hunting Club Road. “It’s got to get done,” Batterson said of the road being paved.

“Some folks down there don’t want it paved,” said County Commissioner Wayne Gruenloh this week during a telephone interview.

“I’ve wanted to do something with it (Hunting Club Road) for a long time. I try real hard to pave roads that affect a lot of people.”

Hunting Club Road residents want to know why some roads in neighboring Elsanor community have been paved with as little as one home or just a few homes along the roads.

Markert said the county paves some dirt roads for environmental reasons and some roads that get paved are single purpose roads.

“We don’t have to have right of way,” in those cases, Markert said.

But Hunting Club Road has to be addressed at what the county engineer called a “higher standard,” meaning such issues as drainage ditches much be taken into account.

“Two or three years ago we tried to get right of way and people wouldn’t donate it,” Markert said. “The hardest thing is getting the right of way.”

Markert notes Hunting Club Road is back on the paving list for 2011, but also notes that funding for paving dirt roads has taken what he called a “nose dive.” Whereas the county has been paving 20 to 25 miles of dirt roads on average over the past several years, that could drop to 10 to 15 miles due to the funding crunch.

“Mr. Gruenloh told me himself that if a road’s been maintained 15 years or longer by the county they can pave what’s there and nobody has to give up any right of way,” Crutchfield said.

Asked about Crutchfield’s statement, Gruenloh said, “I’m thinking we didn’t have everything in line for being able to do it (pave).”

In a rapidly developing county where many might think dirt roads are a thing of the past, Frances and Linden Malone of Seminole Road West offered an example of how important paved roads continue to be for some county residents.

“Until our road was paved, we had a mess,” Frances Malone said.

They had a granddaughter who had cystic fibrosis and the dust on the road affected her. Less than a year after she passed away at the age of 15, Seminole Road West was paved, according to Frances.

“We’re mad enough that we’re going to have a change of heart about who we vote for,” Charles Crutchfield said in connection with paving the road he’s lived on for 15 years or so.

Linda Stegall, who lives near Crutchfield, voiced the same sentiment. She said two school buses use Hunting Club Road and elderly people who live along the road sometimes need ambulance service.

“If the county can’t pave (the road) to where our children and our elderly people are safer, we need to put somebody in office who will,” she said.