County: Maintenance agreements with rural road districts illegally split costs

Agreements between Jefferson County and some areas within the county to provide elevated levels of road maintenance and improvements are illegal in that they split costs between the county and the homeowners, county leaders say—and homeowners in those areas are upset that the agreements could change.

While reviewing the county’s rural maintenance districts, County Planner LaDana Hintz said, the county discovered that it is illegally splitting the cost of road maintenance with the Big Dipper Rural Maintenance District. According to state law, the county and the RMD cannot split the cost of maintenance; one entity or the other must pay the total cost. Commissioner Cory Kirsch said in an interview that there are “four or five” other RMDs that have similar illegal agreements, and the county plans to “chip away” at them “one at a time.” Commissioner Bob Mullen said at an Aug. 17 public hearing that most of the other districts had similar deals as with Big Dipper Drive, in Montana City, where the homeowners pay for physical materials and the county pays for the rest of the road maintenance—namely equipment and labor.

“You are getting into the proverbial can of weeds with that,” County Attorney Steve Haddon said at the Aug. 17 public hearing, referring to the dynamics of various RMD agreements.