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Commission reviews past road abandonments and missing easements ahead of GIS update
Summary
Commissioners and staff discussed whether earlier actions vacating lanes and "abandonments" lacked required easements and whether those records can be treated as valid for the county GIS project.
Citizens and county staff discussed historic road resolutions at a Jan. 27 work session as the county prepares a GIS map of rights-of-way. Several speakers argued that earlier actions to remove lanes from the county road inventory — carried out during a prior administration — relied on incorrect language or missing easements and therefore may not have created lawful abandonments.
Resident Cindy and others described the 1990s-era process and claimed some roads and lanes were never formal county roads because necessary easements were never secured. County staff and the county attorney said the records should be reviewed and that, although the recorded resolutions exist, missing petition elements or easements could mean those segments were never county roads.
Why it matters: county road status affects maintenance responsibility, property rights and the accuracy of the county’s GIS layer. If recorded resolutions are defective, the county may need to flag those segments in the map or treat them as not vested county roads.
Details
Staff reviewed statutes and petition processes that prescribe how to establish, alter or abandon county roads and said a petition process generally requires petitions, notice and public hearings; some items recorded in prior years might lack elements such as easements. Counsel said if any of the required pieces (petition, easement, notice/hearing, resolution) are missing, the county may lack authority to declare a lane a county road and therefore could not properly abandon it.
Commission direction
The county attorney advised treating Spence-era recorded "abandonments" as not county roads for GIS purposes unless documentary evidence (a petition plus easements and required notices) proves otherwise. The commission directed staff to proceed with the GIS project while noting flagged segments and to let counsel know if missing documentation is later produced.
Ending
Commissioners agreed staff and counsel will review records, mark uncertain segments in the GIS project, and proceed with mapping work unless a landowner can prove a valid historical petition and easement chain.
