Complaints, yes; fixes, no

Area residents weigh in about Flathead County roads

Road Advisory Committee Chairman Charles Lapp told audience members to speak their minds for Tuesday night's public meeting on county roads.

"But don't be mean," he said. "Let's keep everything civil."

He almost got his wish.

As citizens stood for their turn at the podium, most of the comments addressed taxes, paving and dust abatement requests.

Creston residents Tom and Noel Gorton, however, got a little more personal.

"The roads department doesn't know what it's doing," Noel Gorton said. "Why do we have a roads supervisor who has 30 years of accounting experience? Our commissioners are becoming less and less educated. Only if you are a person of power will you get anything done. It's not what you know, it's who you know."

The audience of about 30 people applauded her comments.

Her husband echoed her accusation of cronyism.

"I think if you know the commissioners, you'll get your road paved," he said. He also said that if he ran for county commissioner, he would only want to serve for two or three months because that's all the more time it would take to get his road paved.

"The personal attacks are disheartening, and I'm disappointed with that," Flathead County Public Works Director David Prunty said. "I truly believe that we have one heck of a staff here."

Others voiced their frustration with an apparent lack of interest from the county. Many citizens said they've been calling the commissioners for years only to be ignored.

"I hear people say that we don't pay attention to them, but that's not true," Commissioner Dale Lauman said, noting that road and dust issues are not unique to Flathead County. At a conference last week with commissioners from around the state, Lauman said, most of them complained about the same problems.

No matter what idea came to the forefront from the public, the sticking point always seemed to be funding. The county doesn't have the money to pave the 700 miles of gravel and dirt roads, and attempts to receive funding during the last legislative session failed.

"During last session, anything that was a new tax was a 'no,'" Commissioner Dale Lauman said.

The roads department operates on $5.7 million in revenue each year. Fifty-one percent of that money comes from property taxes. The rest typically comes from Forest Service receipts, state and federal funding and the Payment In Lieu of Taxes program.

Because local governments are unable to tax property values or products derived from federal lands, the PILT program provides federal compensation to counties to offset losses in tax revenues.

Flathead County does not have a budget specifically for new paving because the commissioners have directed the roads department to first take care of the current infrastructure.

"We have to be able to survive with what we've got before we can go out and increase our amount of paved roads," Prunty said.

Speaker after speaker said that the county should get out of the road-building business and contract everything out to private companies.

County Road and Bridge Operations Manager Guy Foy said the idea that private contractors would be far less expensive is a misunderstanding.

"We as a staff believe that we are cost competitive," Foy said. "When we look at our actual costs, it's pretty tough for them to compete with us."

Two years ago the county paved half a mile of road in Olney after completely rebuilding the road. The total cost came out to $110,000 - almost $50,000 less than a bid from a private contractor.

The cost to pave one mile of road in the county depends on numerous factors, especially distance from county gravel pits, but Foy said the average cost for asphalt for one mile is between $90,000 and $120,000. Complete rebuilding and paving of roads can reach costs of more than $200,000 per mile.

Using those figures, the cost to pave all of the county's roads would range from $70 million to $150 million. But where would that money come from?

"It is time for the people of Flathead County to step up to the plate and raise taxes and get whatever it takes to put the roads back in shape," Allen Sieler said. "I hope to see something on the ballot in November asking for money. If it's turned down, you can still say your asked for it."

Sieler, who lives on Treasure Lane, said his father promoted a Rural Special Improvement District in 1960, and homeowners paid to get their road paved.

Property owners may ask the commissioners to create a Rural Special Improvement District, which creates districts outside the limits of incorporated towns and cities for the purpose of building, constructing or acquiring certain improvements authorized by Montana law for the benefit of the district. The property owners within the district then pay for the improvement - in this case, roads.

Lewis and Clark County is one example of a county that uses both private contractors and special districts to pave roads. The county used more than 40 special improvement districts in the last year. Property owners in attendance on Tuesday night, however, were not supportive of extra taxes.

"Requiring citizens to do SIDs is beyond unfair," farmer Paul Abel said. "Everyone wants to maintain agricultural land, but the taxes are going to drive farmers off their land."

Abel, who lives on Farm Road, said the dust along his road has gotten so bad that it is reducing the quality of his crops. He noted that Farm Road is used by Bigfork Water and Sewer trucks, semis making trips to a nearby meat packing plant and by people traveling to the county Dumpsters on Montana 82.

"It isn't fair to lump all this cost on the property owners that front these roads," he said. "The burden has to be spread around to those who use the roads."

Prunty said that the meeting was valuable but no real solution came out. The Road Advisory Committee hopes to have a final report to the commissioners with recommendations on solving the road issues in six to eight months.

"I don't expect the money to be there anytime soon," committee member Dan Siderius said. "I don't think we're going to get rid of all the dust, but I'm sympathetic. I live on a gravel road. I want to concentrate more on doing a better job with what we've got now."

Reporter Michael Richeson may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at mricheson@dailyinterlake.com