We need legislators to provide laws that protect taxpaying citizens as equally as they protect the government entities. They act with impunity and the public has no rights or recourse of action when they find government wrongdoing except expensive court battles and no place especially more evident than our local government.
One example of this has fallen on a handful of homeowners in Carbon County. In January I called the county road department asking for a snow plow to push a road I knew to be a designated public county road. I was told it was not a county road even though it was shown on all of their current maps. A group of us met with the commissioners in January and asked for them to help us correct the problem, or perhaps deed them more room to make a turnaround…any number of options.
Multiple county records indicate:
The road was and is a Class B Public Road. Per a previous interoffice memo from a road department supervisor it existed as a County Road in 2004. And from researching records he found that it had been a road since at least 1962
The county for many years has asked for and received State funds to help maintain this road, and yet when someone asks for maintenance they are being told its private…
A subdivision was approved at the end of this road noting it was a public county road.
In addition, a portion of this road was even deeded to the county.
A big problem that comes out of this is that the county simply refuses to act on this. It has been 5 months and all we get is stonewalled. This type of behavior from elected officials should not be an option for them to abuse. They even went so far as to remove the road from the county maps. This should not be legally done until they have completed a mandatory public process.
Now the commissioners excuse is that it is too narrow and they would have to drive on to private ground. But as probably a large number of us know there are many roads that fit in this category and they are not abandoning these roads nor should they. But neither should this one be abandoned. They need to abide by fair and consistent standards.
Looking into it further it appears that the county in years past has even paved peoples yards. They gravel huge numbers of miles of roads in the mountains that go to locked gates and are completely on private property. Two such mountain roads has or will have expensive reconstruction to areas where the roads were washed out. Why do taxpayers have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain these mountain roads when they are trying to abandon roads within the developed areas of the county with taxpaying homeowners who will lose the right to safe and clear access to homes?
This to save money on the budget? Meanwhile our county lawmakers have raised their annual wages to $50,256.00 plus another $29,000.00 in benefits. We have an extravagant new county building, and a soon to be new soccer field on the outskirts of town when it could have been combined with the University’s planned field in the center of town saving thousands over time. Meanwhile they are taking roads away, charging us to dump garbage, taking funding from bookmobile and senior citizen center. Beyond needing legal protections from this, shame on our public officials.
Cindy O’Neil
Wellington
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