Let’s talk trash—trash fecklessly flung from vehicles by reckless road raccoons. And let’s talk about how one community worked to clean it up.
Mike Stiborik and his neighbors from the new Bridlegate Ranch were fed up with people throwing trash out as they drove by their subdivision along Bottle Springs/English Crossing Road. Since trash pickup along a road right-of-way is not a service provided by the county, they knew it would require neighborhood volunteer action. In January of 2022, they organized a dozen neighbors for a road pickup.
Mike led the Bridlegate residents to the County Commissioners’ regular monthly meeting and proposed a voluntary road-adoption program for county roads similar to the one that the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) had been doing since 1985 on state highways. More than 3,800 groups of volunteers are reported as participants in the state’s Adopt-a-Highway program, 26 of them in Bandera County.
We gave details of this program in a June 5, 2024, Trash Talk column: a group takes charge of a two-mile stretch of a state road for a minimum of two years, agreeing to clean their portion of the highway at least four times each year. TxDOT posts signs with the group’s name along the adopted section of the road and supplies volunteers with safety vests, litter bags and picks up the bags when full. This model was designed to fit best in unincorporated rural communities, where county tax dollars often don’t cover trash pickup services. According to TxDOT, approximately 362 million pieces of litter accumulate on Texas roads every year.
Bandera County Judge Richard Evans followed up on the request by Bridlegate residents by appointing a committee of residents to work with Commissioner Bruce Eliker, and Roads Superintendent John Andrade to set it up. Mirroring the Tx-DOT model, the committee fashioned an Adopt-a-County-Road program. Andrade noted the county maintains 430 miles of county roads. That’s a lot to cover, but the roads near Bridlegate Ranch were a place to start.
Following the lead of Mike’s group, the Bridlegate Trash Pandas adopted a two-mile road segment with Mark Lacy as coordinator. Asked about the group name, Lacy said it was made up of many of the same Bridlegate residents who had been competing and winning for two years as Trash Pandas in a game of Trivia at the Bandera Brewery.
Another group organized by Bridlegate board member Barbara Harris adopted a county road segment near their subdivision.
Madrona Ridge residents had been picking up along Whartons Dock Road for a couple of years at the entrance to their subdivision with Dan Wethor as coordinator. They adopted two two-mile segments.
It took two years to work its way through the county bureaucracy, but Mike was able to witness the adoption of ten miles of county roads before he died on August 18 of this year.
On October 25, forty-three people gathered at the entrance to Bridlegate Ranch to honor Mike’s vision, cleaning the six-miles of adopted roadway. Traveling from Houston and other parts of Texas were Mike’s widow (Linda Stiborik), Mike’s sister (Theresa Fontana) and friend (Margaret Ferguson), his daughter (Kelley Stilman), and granddaughter (Kaylee Stilman).
Road superintendent Andrade added a sign memorializing the Bridlegate road adoptions in Mike’s name. He also committed to have the county follow the cleanups with mowing.
If you’d like to complete the vision that Mike had for Bandera County: identify or form a volunteer group and contact John Andrade (jandrade@banderacounty. org) to adopt two miles of a county road segment. Or adopt a state highway segment by contacting the area coordinator, Priscilla Vasquez at 210-615-5912 or email Priscilla. [email protected]. In either case, you can contact us locally by email for assistance: dontmakewatebandera@gmail. com.
A highway sign honors Mike Stiborik and the Bridlegate residents’ commitment to cleaning and maintaining our county roads. Courtesy Photo
