Interruption Of Pavement A ‘Sore Thumb’ On Molter

Paving on most of the mile-long stretch of Molter Road bordering the MeadowWood development at Liberty Lake was completed in mid-September.

But after developer Harlan Douglass, who owns the Liberty Lake post office building at 1423 N. Molter, decided not to join property owners in a voluntary effort to finish the road this year, the 50-yard section of arterial in front of the post office will most likely remain unpaved until next spring.

Some folks say the gap, highlighted now by a concrete traffic barrier, stands out like a sore thumb.

“How can you not notice it?” asked Kaye Walker, golf pro at MeadowWood Golf Course. “There’s a whole bunch of brand-new asphalt and then big chunks of dirt right in the middle.”

Walker said the post office has never blended well with its surroundings, pointing to the lack of landscaping and weeds poking through on the property. The unfinished road, he said, only makes matters worse.

“That place wouldn’t fit in up in Dog Town,” Walker said.

Ray Naccarato, postmaster at the Liberty Lake post office since 1981, said his concerns about the unfinished road are more than just aesthetic. Two already-completed storm drains sit just above ground level in the middle of the dirt, where Naccarato said they can’t collect any water.

“I’m going to have a muddy mess when the snow melts,” Naccarato said. “It’s going to be icy in the winter, and plowing it is going to be a problem.”

Douglass did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Greenstone Corporation, developer of MeadowWood, began the road improvement project July 1. Greenstone president Jim Frank said he would have liked it if Douglass had cooperated, but admitted the North Side real-estate man has every right to wait until the county forms a road improvement district (RID) before he chips in to pay for paving.

RIDs typically are created when the county designates a road for improvement, enlisting the help of adjacent property owners to pay the costs. If property owners agree to make improvements privately, however, there is no need to form a RID.

“It’s (Douglass’s) choice,” Frank said, explaining that he decided to go ahead with the project because it was faster and less expensive to finance it privately than through an RID. The neighboring Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the owner of a lot to the north of the post office also paid for paving of Molter in front of their properties.

“Because (Douglass) wanted to do his section of road under an RID, it’s going to take longer,” Frank said.

Brian McCann of the Spokane County Engineering Department said the only advantage to creating the RID is that property owners can pay the cost of the project over 10 years.