Highway District Would Settle For Dover Bonner Commission Fears Annexation Plan Would Hurt County’S Chances To Dissolve District

The tiny town of Dover is suddenly central to the dispute over Sandpoint’s streets.

By allowing the city of Dover to be annexed into the Sandpoint Independent Highway District, the Bonner County Commission might be able to resolve two lawsuits.

County civil counsel John Topp laid out the proposal during the commissioner’s business meeting Thursday.

If the county allows the Dover annexation, the highway district would drop a suit against the county and also refrain from challenging a recent court ruling that turned over control of city streets to Sandpoint.

Now, Sandpoint and the highway district share boundaries, except for two streets that lie outside the city limits.

The highway district has been operating only on those two streets since a Nov. 28th ruling by 1st District Court Judge James Judd that allowed Sandpoint to take care of its own roads.

If the highway district drops the suit against the county, the county could move forward with an election on dissolving the highway district.

The chairman of the highway district has made it clear that the district does not want the election to go forward. But nullifying the election was not included in the settlement agreement that the county was presented with Thursday.

Nor was it part of a proposal discussed in Judd’s chambers during a Monday court hearing over the election, according to the city of Sandpoint’s attorney.

Sandpoint city officials oppose the proposed settlement for a couple of reasons. If Dover becomes part of the highway district, and the dissolution election is held, those additional voters from Dover could sway the results in favor of the highway district.

If that were to occur, City Councilwoman Cindy Elliott explained, then Sandpoint residents would be taxed to support a highway district that operates in a different city.

Also, all highway district equipment and property, which Sandpoint residents helped purchase, would be used to benefit Dover, not Sandpoint.

With dissolution, the equipment owned by the highway district would either be turned over to Bonner County or to the city of Sandpoint, depending on how a state statute is interpreted.

And if the election were to result in dissolution, “it creates another avenue for litigation,” she said. “Dover could challenge the dissolution.”

If dissolved, the tax dollars now collected by the highway district within the city would be collected by the county. The city would receive back 50 percent of that revenue.

The city is supposed to receive 50 percent back from the Sandpoint Independent Highway District, but the highway district kept the full amount for at least 20 years until the city challenged the practice last year.

But when the city demanded its share, the district passed a special levy, which allowed it to keep the majority of the city tax dollars.

Sandpoint Independent Highway District Commissioner Larry Glahe said that if Dover were annexed, the district may drop that levy “so the city will get full benefit of their funds.”

Critics of the settlement proposal fear that if Dover were annexed, that could send petitioners for dissolution back to the drawing board.

The county ordered an election last summer after holding two public hearings on the petitioners’ request.

If the boundaries of the highway district change, that might make the current petition to dissolve the district obsolete.

“It’s a clever way of getting around that election,” Sandpoint resident Roger Nichols said.

But Sandpoint’s attorney, Scott Reed, said the law is pretty clear that dissolution would apply to the highway district as it exists the day of the election - not as it existed when the petition was filed.

“It shouldn’t matter” that Dover is part of the district, he said, except in that Dover citizens would be allowed to vote.

Bonner County commissioners, with Commissioner Bud Mueller dissenting, decided to schedule a public hearing on the Dover annexation for Dec. 27.

That way, the annexation could go forward before the end of the year, and Dover could be on the tax rolls beginning Jan. 1, 2001.