County rules to keep dirt road public

NINE MILE FALLS – A proposal to close part of a dirt road in the Nine Mile Falls area, born of a neighborhood dispute over who should maintain the road, has been rejected.

Highland Road is substandard and hasn’t been approved for county maintenance, so the homeowners it serves are supposed to keep it passable. But they don’t get along.

Some of them asked county commissioners to vacate a section of the road – from a point 2,000 feet west of Charles Road to the point where Highland connects with Red Fir Lane.

But commissioners refused after a public hearing last week in which county Engineer Bob Brueggeman said the entire road needs to remain public.

Bob Anderson, chief of Spokane County Fire District 9, told Brueggeman in a letter that vacating a section of the road would reduce fire safety by turning Highland Road and Red Fir Lane into a pair of dead ends.

“At least eight homes would be impacted by this proposed action, leaving us with inferior access and only one way in and out,” Anderson wrote.

He said response times would increase about 2 1/2 minutes for homes near the northern end of Red Fir Lane if firefighters couldn’t get there on Highland Road.

Anderson said Red Fir, which connects with Pine Bluff Road, is even worse than Highland. County roads are supposed to be at least 24 feet wide and no steeper than 12 percent, but Red Fir Lane is as narrow as 12 feet and has 16 percent to 20 percent grades, he said.

The fire chief said District 9 agreed to annex the neighborhood on condition that the roads remain open. He said district officials have been trying for three years to get county officials to improve the road system – not make it worse.