Poor Roads Spark Rage In Bonner Frustrated Drivers Target County Crews, Sandpoint Highway District

As frost-heaves and melting snow crumble the asphalt around Bonner County, public thoughts turn to breaking up the local road departments, too.

The same day the Bonner County commissioners scheduled a public hearing on the dissolution of the Sandpoint Independent Highway District, a local citizen presented a 14-page proposal to privatize the county’s road department.

Richard Kiser lives on Clagstone Road in southern Bonner County. In the summer, the dust is so bad he’s been nearly run off the road. He couldn’t get any dust control from the county, he said.

“I told them, `You folks could have bought me off a year ago with a couple thousand dollars of dust control. Now I’m like a burr under your blanket’,” Kiser said.

Kiser says the county would save money, about 49 percent of what’s spent now, if it contracted out nearly all of the work county crews do.

He also contends the county crews don’t do work to the state’s performance standards.

“I want to change the entire operation,” Kiser said. “I want to turn it over to private enterprise. I feel very strongly that they’re more equipped to do a better job.”

Kiser’s likely to have many sympathizers in a county that suffers an annual spring breakup that sometimes leaves families stranded because of impassable roads.

But Commissioner Dale Van Stone expressed reservations about the plan: “The only problem I have with it, once you go that way, and you get into it and decide it’s not working and it costs more money, how do you go back and resurrect a road department in the county with all your equipment gone?”

Van Stone said the proposal will go to Public Works Director Tim Elsea for his review, then they’ll schedule a meeting to discuss it.

Meanwhile, people within the city of Sandpoint frustrated with the condition of their streets will have an opportunity to vent on April 4.

A petition to dissolve the Sandpoint Independent Highway District, which includes the city of Sandpoint and parts of Ponderay, was declared valid by the county clerk, and by law, the county commissioners must schedule a public hearing. Afterward, they could decide to hold an election on the issue.

Advocates of dissolution maintain that the district wastes money, does a poor job maintaining streets, and inconveniences the public and businesses. They argue that the public would be better served if the streets were taken over by the city.

This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Hearing

The public hearing to dissolve the Sandpoint highway district is scheduled for 10 a.m., April 4, in Sandpoint Community Hall.