Residents of roads 23

Residents of roads 23, K form improvement district

Jan. 22, 2002

By Gail Binkly
Journal Managing Editor

The county’s first road-improvement district was formed Monday, when the Montezuma County commissioners voted 2-0 to pass a resolution creating a district to pave approximately two miles of road near Crow Canyon west of Cortez.

The room full of residents of roads 23 and K broke into applause when the resolution was passed.

The total cost of the improvements will be $35,617, which will be divided among 47 property owners, costing each owner some $758.

The money can either be paid in a lump sum or in semi-annual installments on the owner’s property-tax bill. All the affected landowners will be required to pay their share. When the job is completed, the county will assume responsibility for maintaining the road and the neighbors’ obligations will be ended.

Archie Hanson, developer of Indian Camp Ranch, said the residents in that area had for years been frustrated by the washboarded condition of the roads, especially in summer.

"We have no squawk with the road department," he said, adding that county workers would come out to grade the road on the rare occasions that rain fell last summer, even on a Sunday.

"We couldn’t ever get it to rain on a weekday, could we?" Commission Chairman Kent Lindsay asked jokingly.

Hanson said, after being told that the county had no money to improve the road, some landowners organized and sent out petitions about the possibility of forming an improvement district. Of 47 property owners, just two were opposed to the chip-sealing project.

All of the two dozen or so residents present at Monday’s public hearing raised their hands when asked if they were in favor of the project.

The paving will extend to the entrance of Crow Canyon. Ricky Lightfoot, Crow Canyon president, said the organization generates a lot of the traffic on road 23 and K and is "very much in favor of the project and pleased to be a part of it."

Hanson added that the road-improvement district is "the very first one that has ever been done in Montezuma County."

"This is the first time someone has taken a county road and said, ‘Let’s improve it and have the people pay their share’," he said.

He and the commissioners said they hoped others who are dissatisfied with the condition of their roads might do the same.

In other business Monday:

• The commissioners ranked energy-impact-grant applications for the next round of funding from the state, giving top priority to the town of Mancos’ request for $152,454 for Phase II of a sewer-replacement project. Town Administrator Tom Glover said the project will replace "the next worst sewer line" in town, a six-inch clay pipe that serves 137 lots. The worst sewer line was replaced during Phase I, which was funded partially through an energy-impact grant.

Ranked second on the priority list was a request by the town of Dolores for $92,862 for upgrades to the town’s water system, and in third place was Montezuma County’s request for $50,000 to begin planning efforts for the Dolores River Valley.

The Energy and Mineral Impact Assistance Program is administered by the Department of Local Affairs and funded through royalties paid on oil, gas and mineral extraction. County and local governments can apply for grants from the program if they can show that the projects have been necessitated partly because of the effects of drilling or mining, or the pullout of mining companies from their areas.

• Decided to advertise for someone to replace John Kocourek, former chair of the county lodgers’ tax board, who has moved to Arizona. Sue Scott, one of the four board members remaining, said the group’s members have no set terms, so the commissioners said they would take applications and appoint someone to an open-ended term.