(August 17, 2007)
1)
Background
a)
i) 45 homes which depended on these roads
(1) 53 now
ii) Although the roads had been in existence and use since about 1970, their easements had not been properly dedicated to public use prior to 1978
iii) Per state law, the County cannot provide any maintenance for roads which were not dedicated by 1975, or earlier – therefore the county would not maintain our roads as “primitive roads”.
iv) Homeowners had been providing some road maintenance on a voluntary basis
(1) Maintenance was poor quality
(2) Costs were not being evenly shared
(3) Some owners were not contributing
(4) Absentee owners did not contribute
(5) There was a concern about adequate access for emergency vehicles
b) Sam
Stanford and I met with the County Dept. of Public Works and County Attorney’s
Office to see what options we had available to us to address our road
maintenance problems.
i) The only way for the County to assume maintenance for the roads would be for the property owners to bring them up to County standards.
(1) County standards require the roads to be paved
(2) Estimated costs were about $700,000 per mile, for a total of $2.1M
(3) Could
form an Improvement District to include all
(4) This was deemed to be infeasible, due to the relatively small number of property owners (73).
ii) An alternate approach was suggested, i.e. to form a Road Maintenance District.
(1) Distinct
entity from
(2) Funds obtained using the County’s property taxing authority
(3) Funds are kept in a separate account for the MD, and the MD is provided monthly “bank statements”
(4) A contractor is selected by the County, through its bid process, to perform the road maintenance.
(5) There is an Advisory Committee appointed by the BoS, consisting of selected property owners (5 in our case)
(a) The AC develops and recommends a maintenance budget for approval by the BoS
(i) Budget can be for whatever level of maintenance the property owners desire, i.e. no need to bring up to county standards
1. In our case, we plan grading 4 times per year, snow removal as requires, and limited improvements as funds allow.
a. Culverts
b. Added surface material
2. Our budget for 2008 is $16,000.
(b) The AC provides day-to-day direction for the maintenance contractor.
(6) This is the option that Sam and I decided to pursue.
2)
Formation of
the MD
a) Two
steps
i) Owner survey to determine support
ii) Petition Drive
iii) Started this process in November, 2005.
b) Owner Survey
i) Decided to do a survey, since significant expense required to prepare for petition drive, i.e. engineering survey for the MD boundaries.
ii) Solicited two budgetary estimates from potential contractors for annual maintenance costs for our roads
iii) Solicited budgetary estimate for liability insurance for the MD (required by the County)
iv) Retrieved information from the County Assessor Database to support our efforts, and to obtain information for individual cost estimates.
(1) Owner mailing information so that we could form a mailing list
(2) Total Accessed Full Cash Value (sum of FCVs for all properties within the proposed MD)
(3) FCV for every parcel within the MD
v) Sent out a survey letter to every property owner (Bob has copy), including:
(1) Background and rationale for forming the MD
(2) List of FAQs to address potential questions
(3) Proposed MD boundary (graphic)
(4) Map of proposed roads to be maintained (Graphic)
(5) Individual annual cost estimate for each owner
(6) Survey response form
vi) Sent out survey status update letter to all owners, to remind them to send in their survey responses.
vii) Upon successful completion of the survey, sent out a letter to all owners outlining next steps, i.e. how we would proceed with the petition drive.
c) Petition Drive
i) Completed the Engineering Survey for the proposed MD, required by the County
(1) We funded this ourselves, even though we could bill the MD for this expense.
(2) Survey performed by Hook Engineering.
ii) The County provided:
(1) An updated mailing list for all property owners (although mine was more accurate)
(2) A petition for signature, including an attached MD map, including roads to be maintained.
(3) Petition signature lists, and notary forms for mailed in signatures
(4) Other forms to be signed and notarized for petition collectors (Sam and myself)
iii) Sent out a petition letter (Bob has copies), including:
(1) Cover letter providing a summary of what we were trying to accomplish, and instructions for completing the petition.
(2) Copy of the petition
(3) Signature sheet and notary form
(4) Indication of non-support (which the owner could return, which would indicate that we shouldn’t continue to bother him for a signature)
iv) Held an information meeting for all property owners to give them a chance to ask questions, and to sign the petition if they desired.
v) In June, 2006, we obtained sufficient signatures to form the MD (about 59% of the owners) and submitted the results to the County.
(1) Sent a letter to all owners to inform them of this.
vi) The MD was formed in August, 2006
(1) Sent a letter to all owners to inform them of this, and the next steps.
3)
Steps
following approval of the MD
a)
i)
Funds do not become available to the MD until November,
2007.
ii) The
County has provided maintenance to our roads during the interim
(1) Initial
grading (crowning and bar ditching)
(a) Sam
and I performed required brush clearing to allow full access to the roadway by
the grader
(2) Maintenance
grading (once per quarter)
(3) Surface
material (cinders) where required.
b) We
formed the Advisory Committee
i)
5 nominees submitted to the BoS, and were approved.
ii) AC
bylaws were developed (by the AC), and approved by BoS.
iii) Budget
for $16,000 developed by the AC, and approved by the BoS
c) A
contractor was hired by the County
d) We
are in the process of developing a Maintenance Plan for 2008
i)
Doing only grading and snow removal until next spring
ii) Depending
on available funds at that time, will schedule additional improvements (e.g.
culverts and surface material)
(1) Required
improvements will take several years to complete, based on available funds.
4)
Recommendations
a) Determine
the approach that is best for your situation
i)
Improvement District
ii) Maintenance
District
iii) The
approval process should be similar for either of the above.
b) Select
a small subcommittee to do the leg work (2 or 3)
i)
At least one member of this committee needs to be
proficient with a computer
(1) Internet
and email
(a) Most
interactions with the County can be done in this way
(b) Access
to the Assessor Database
(2) Microsoft
Office
(a) Owner
tracking spread sheet
(b) Letters
and form letters/documents
(c) Address
labels
ii) They
need to be able to dedicate a significant portion of their time, at least in
the beginning. I have probably spent the
equivalent of a couple of man months on this effort over the MD formation
process (10 calendar months)
iii) Note
that the
(1) A
key note: keep detailed notes of your
meetings with County personnel, and circulate them to all meeting participants
after the meeting. These records
proved to be very helpful to Sam and I during this process.
c) Keep
your property owners informed in great detail, as to what is going on.
i)
Bob has copies of all of the mailings that we did,
which worked well, and can be examples for you.
ii) Mailings
are expensive. Sam and I absorbed these
costs, but you may wish to share those among yourselves in some way.
d) Don’t
expect unanimous approval and support
i)
Be prepared for some owners to be very negative and
hostile. This is normal.
ii) In
our case, most negative owners have changed their opinions following approval,
once they saw the results of the maintenance effort.
iii) If
there is doubt that majority support exists, you might consider doing a formal
survey first, like we did.