BOS to consider new plan for public roadways
Policy would incorporate them into county maintenance system
The Yuma County Board of Supervisors is considering a policy under which public roads in certain subdivisions could be accepted into the county’s maintenance system.
The board reviewed a proposal from Public Works Department staff during the Nov. 19 meeting, after District 1 Supervisor Martin Porchas and others on the board said they wanted to find a way to accommodate residents living in neighborhoods where the streets were dedicated for public use, but not built to county standards.
As a result, county officials never took responsibility for grading or repairing them, so residents have to either find a way to maintain them on their own, or else form a county improvement district and agree to pay a dedicated tax to cover the cost.
These areas were built before the county began requiring all subdivision roads to be built to county standards and dedicated to the county, rather than just to the “public” with no particular jurisdiction responsible for upkeep.
Josh Scott, county public works director, laid out a plan where some of the 126 miles of roadways in this category could come into the network, but the number of streets, and the expectations, would be limited.
“We’re not talking about
Highway 95, so residents will have to understand they’re receiving a lower level of maintenance,” he said.
To qualify, these roads must have been built prior to June 1990, due to a state statute that bars counties from maintaining any of these public roads built past that date.
Residents would be required to petition the county for inclusion, and these mostly unpaved roads would not get as much attention from county crews as the ones covered by the county’s current maintenance plan for dirt and gravel roads currently in the county’s network, relaunched in 2017.
They would get “minor grading” about two or three times a year to remove washboarding and ruts so they would be more passable. There would be no recapping or other additional surface work, and dust control measures would only be used on higher-traffic roads.
Roads would not be paved unless residents formed an improvement district.
The first year of maintenance would be considered a pilot program, with a cap of seven miles of new roads, which could be raised to 15 the next year if it seems to work well.
This service would be limited to residential roads or those leading to utility, school or government locations. There would be a limit on the amount of property served that belongs to one owner.
Scott estimated the cost would be $3,200 to $8,500 per mile. They would also need to purchase a new grader, roller and water truck for every 40 miles, for a total equipment cost of $423,000 that could be spread out to annual payments of about $52,000.
Longtime Supervisor Tony Reyes said members from previous boards, including himself, had no interest in taking on these costs. But implementing a policy where the officials could be more selective makes it more financially palatable.
“We didn’t deal with any requests, for any areas that weren’t covered right away because we always felt that if we did one, we had to do every one,” he said.
Reyes said he could support Scott’s proposal, but said he felt the majority of complaints he’d been getting about road maintenance were coming from areas built much more recently than 1990, in developments too small to be required to meet the same standards as subdivisions.
“Through this process we may not be getting to the meat of the problem,” he said.
Scott said many of the complaints do appear to be coming from areas that would be covered by the policy, particularly in the eastern county.
Scott said last week he has put the proposal into a formal policy that can be adopted by the board, and it will probably be scheduled for a February meeting.
If the policy is accepted by the board, some contingency road maintenance funds could be allocated for that purpose, or it would be considered as part of the 2019-20 fiscal year budget.