Commission pares down list of roads to abandon

A list of 29 rural roads scattered around Washington County that commissioners were looking at possibly abandoning as far as maintenance was pared down to only a few.
 Commissioners went through the list last week to announce which sections of roads would no longer receive any maintenance or snow plowing. No action was taken on a few roads that required more research into their status as a public or private road.
 A few road segments dropped from county maintenance were at the request of the property owners. Another road section that will not be maintained is located within the Midvale city limits.
 In making their decision on which roads the county would discontinue maintenance, commissioners said they reviewed the comments from a public hearing held in August and attended by about 50 rural residents.
 Most of the comments at the hearing on the list of roads were opposed to the county abandoning the road segments.

Commissioners took up each road segment one at a time and asked for testimony or comments on whether it should remain a public right-of-way and receive county maintenance or if it is a private road.
 Commissioner Lisa Collini said if someone provided sound reasons for county maintenance on a section of road to continue she was in favor of not abandoning it.
 She added that some roads may need improvements so county road crews can access the road for grading or plowing.
 “That will be a condition on not abandoning the road,” she said. “Our number one concern is road and bridge crew safety – that they can get into the road and do what is necessary.”
 Commission chairman Kirk Chandler said if people had a valid reason why the road should not be closed, or if there was more than one landowner on the road, they were not dropped from county maintenance.
 At the August hearing on possible road abandonment, commissioners said they wanted to hear from landowners if there is public interest in keeping a road open to the public, such as access to BLM, Forest Service or state public lands. Does the road landlock others from access their property?
 Some who spoke said they were worried if the road that accesses their property were declared private they might be landlocked.
 In some cases, one property owner might need to secure an easement from another to use a private road for access.
 Most of the roads on the list were a half-mile or less in length. Some were described as access to one home or access to two homes and fields or having no turnaround for county equipment on the road.
 County officials were not sure why the county started maintaining some of them in the first place.