Most people are happy when their road gets new asphalt, but not Marty Knight of Saylor Township.

A former county jail officer disabled after an insider attack, Knight peppered Polk County supervisors with complaints about 12- to 17-inch drop-offs he measured in front of his house after county road work was completed in his neighborhood this summer.

“I would love to know how to mow my lawn when I am disabled and now my 94 year old mother drove off your new road disaster,” he wrote, sending photos to county officials of his mother’s vehicle stopped on the road after the accident.

Knight’s written pleas for help to the Watchdog were filled with frustration, especially since he felt he had suffered so much as a county employee.

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Year 2017, approxConvicted murderer Steven Anthony Asbury attacked him in the county jail with a homemade shaft, hit him in the head, blinded him in one eye and knocked out all his teeth. Now on disability, Knight said, he still has life-threatening health problems — and has had to endure additional threats from Asbury, who had to serve 25 more years in prison for the attack in addition to a life sentence.

According to him, the least the county could do was to fix a problem it created when, he said, it didn’t grind the road properly before laying new asphalt. He said water shut-off valves stuck nearly a foot out of the ground after and road drains next to nearby drains posed a danger to drivers and pedestrians alike.

Knight told Watchdog that the county’s first solution was to put gravel in his yard to facilitate that drop-off, which would have made parts of his yard and others’ “unmowable.”

He wasn’t happy with an Oct. 5 meeting he had with county officials, telling the Watchdog that dozens of neighbors in Saylorville’s Golden Acres neighborhood were ready to demand that something be done.

County responds quickly when Watchdog asks

Knight said if he seemed a little threatening in his messages to county officials, it was because he had just learned he needed a dangerous operation.

Fortunately, however, he won his battle with the county shortly after it began.

After Watchdog reached out to the county on Oct. 29, Bret VandeLune, the county’s director of public works, said 2 feet of dirt will be added to roads in that neighborhood in unincorporated Polk County. The county will also raise or replace mailboxes that must be removed.

He said the county just needed some time to figure out what to do, and has been out for the past week hanging notices on doors to let residents know.

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VandeLune said the county typically has rock shafts in rural areas, but it took a while to consider options for Golden Acres. Two feet of tapered dirt shoulder on either side covered in new hydra seed was the best option.

The work will affect streets north of 66^Th Avenue and east of Northwest Sixth Drive and south of Northwest 69^Th Avenue.

Contacted Wednesday by the Watchdog, Knight said he is relieved.

“That would be great, so my wife can at least mow the lawn and we can get our mail. That’s all we’re asking for.”

Lee Rood’s Reader’s Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, law enforcement, businesses and nonprofits. Reach her at [email protected], at 515-284-8549, on Twitter at @leerood or on Facebook at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.This story has been updated to add video.

This article originally appeared on the Des Moines Register: In Saylorville, good news for former prison officer soured Polk County