Highway District Annexation Rejected Bonner County Commission Rejects Dover Plan

Swayed by entreaties to be fair, Bonner County Commissioner Dale Van Stone on Wednesday rejected a bid to annex the town of Dover into the Sandpoint Independent Highway District.

Van Stone was the swing vote on the three-member commission. Commissioner Bud Mueller was dead set against annexation, while Commissioner Brian Orr favored it.

Now the messy question of the highway district’s dissolution is back on 1st District Judge James Judd’s bench.

Judd could rule this week on whether to allow an election to go forward on dissolving the highway district.

Van Stone and Mueller voted last May to hold the election, with Orr dissenting. That decision was made after two public hearings on a citizens’ petition for the election.

The highway district challenged that decision in court. Judd has been presented briefs from the county and city of Sandpoint in favor of the election, and a brief in opposition from the highway district.

He delayed his ruling at a Dec. 4 court hearing, after highway district attorney Bruce Green said the district would drop its lawsuit if the county allowed it to annex Dover.

Had Dover been annexed, the tiny town west of Sandpoint would have doubled its money for street maintenance and repair. It also would have inherited equipment that until recently has been used to maintain Sandpoint city streets.

“We’re not out after Sandpoint’s money or equipment,” Dover Mayor Randy Curless said. “But if the highway district goes away, so does a tenth of our road budget.”

Judd recently ruled that the city of Sandpoint, which formed a street department this year, has jurisdiction over its streets. That ruling set loose the city’s plows and left the highway district with less than a mile of road to maintain.

Highway district officials have said that if they’re not allowed to annex Dover, they will appeal Judd’s ruling on the jurisdiction question.

Had Dover been annexed, Dover citizens would have been able to vote in the dissolution election.

But that, Sandpoint Mayor Paul Graves argued, would have been “a gross injustice” to citizens of Sandpoint who requested the election in the first place.

Most testimony at Wednesday’s public hearing opposed the annexation.

“Just let the people of Sandpoint have an election,” Ross Fulmer said. “If they decide the highway district does a great job, then the highway district stays.”

Van Stone said afterward he decided to stick with his original vote for the election, after realizing that the highway district and city of Sandpoint couldn’t work out an agreement to co-exist.

Highway district officials recently proposed to the City Council that they enter into a joint powers agreement, but city officials thought the vote should proceed first. “I don’t think it’s fair for Dover to come in and be part of the vote,” Van Stone said.

If voters dissolve the highway district, the city of Sandpoint would inherit the district’s equipment and assets after outstanding debts were paid. But about $200,000 in state Highway User Funds that the highway district now collects for use on Sandpoint streets would be lost.

In addition, road and bridge taxes collected by the highway district within Sandpoint - now approximately $357,000 - would be collected instead by Bonner County. The county would then return half that tax revenue to the city.