County engineer discusses partnering with Forest Service on road maintenance and emergency response

Josh Thompson, Okanagan County Engineer, briefed the commissioners on ongoing road maintenance and coordination efforts with the U.S. Forest Service. Thompson said the Forest Service’s Good Neighbor Authority could enable agreements that let the county perform additional maintenance work on shared routes as part of multi‑year projects—examples include pulverize, add base, and chip‑seal sequences on forest roads where the service’s contractor does major rehabilitation and the county could follow with a finishing shot.