Bid questions lead to levy talk

SANDPOINT — A discussion over obtaining bids for liquid asphalt for the Road and Bridge Department turned into a discussion about levies at last week’s Bonner County commissioners’ meeting after a resident asked for a point of order regarding a “blip” he’d heard about or seen in the news.

Local resident Kevin Moore told the board he was interested in “opening up a dialogue so the public would know that you’re wanting to put a $50 to $55 per $100,000 for, I believe it was, the road department. Can you tell me, and the public, where we stand on that?”

Commission chair, Dan McDonald said, “Sure. With the increase in population, we’ve seen a big increase in damage to our gravel roads mainly, our connectors, ones that other roads feed into. That maintenance cost is already starting to be realized by Road and Bridge and it’s busting their budge to the point of breaking.

“So as we started looking at studies, we found that for every two miles of gravel surface road with high traffic counts – 1,000 to 1,500 cars a day, that we could save, over a 20-year period, about $280,000 for every two miles we do. So it seems like a prudent investment to go ahead and invest the money now while costs are less because we don’t know where oil prices are going to go, than to wait and try to do this later and increase taxes.”

McDonald said that the county has several options to raise the necessary funding. The least preferable would be a foregone tax — property taxes that could have been collected in previous years, but weren’t, and are available to be levied for future use.

No one likes that idea because it would raise the base tax level forever, McDonald said. The second option would be a retiring levy or a series of retiring levies with two-year “sun-setting” terms until the connectors are completed.

“We can kick the can down the road and pay a lot more later, or we can take care of it now,” McDonald said. “We’ve already identified the roads, kept maintenance records, so we know exactly which roads we’re going to hit. The work will be spread evenly around the county,” McDonald said.

Commissioner Jeff Connolly told Moore that the proposed levy will be on the ballot at May’s election. McDonald said that prior to the ballot measure, commissioners will be holding open houses in various areas of the county so the public can come ask questions.

The commissioners approved Road and Bridge’s request to seek bids for the liquid asphalt as well as one for magnesium chloride which is used to stabilize gravel roads, aka dust abatement.

In other business, commissioners approved annexation of 62 parcels into West Pend Oreille Fire District, the destruction of records at both the sheriff’s and treasurer’s departments, and the granting of a continuance to Planning and Zoning regarding the subdivision ordinance. They approved two Fair Board members, Gail Curless and Laya Bleckwenn, and agreed fair staff could seek a memorandum of understanding with Bonner County Sportsmen’s Association regarding the Wildlife Education Building.

Commissioners also were presented with the annual report of the Community Guardian Board. Kevin Rothenberger, director of Indigent Services and Charity, told the commissioners that the report contained what the board accomplished, how many wards and board members they had.

McDonald asked Rothenberger to give a brief synopsis of this board and what they do. Rothenberger said that the county currently has seven wards, which is about average.

“The Community Guardians step in when there is a person who is unable to take care of themselves either financially or medically. That’s a recommendation usually from a physician that the board be appointed to take care of this person’s needs. They get appointed by the court as the ward or the guardian.

“The board works with family members, if they are able to locate any, to have that person be the guardian or the conservator for the family member. But the majority of people want nothing to do with the elderly parent who potentially has dementia, so the board steps in and gets court appointed to either be the guardian or the conservator. Conservators take care of financial needs. Guardians are responsible for the medical needs of that person.”

Also during the meeting, commissioners approved the purchase of an ambulance to serve the Blanchard area. Jeff Lindsey, EMS director, said the area has typically been underserved and the department was “in process of working with Stoneridge to put a station over there and man it 24/7.”

The request for $200,000 would cover the cost of a new truck, Lindsey said. The box for the ambulance portion will be recycled from a retired ambulance.

“The demand in that area has increased dramatically,” McDonald said. “And one of the problems we’ve had is that we have been relying on Spirit Lake to serve only BLS (basic life support) but if you’re having a heart attack it’s ALS (advanced life support). So, then we have to pull a paramedic from Priest River which becomes problematic because if you’re having a heart attack you don’t want to wait 20 minutes or whatever it takes to get someone down there.