The Elko County Board of Commissioners voted to amend the county Road Maintenance Plan and awarded the county’s annual pavement preventative program to SNC (Sierra Nevada Construction) at a board meeting that included extended public comments about dust and unpaved developments.

The amendments to the Road Maintenance Plan add classifications and the roads the county accepted for maintenance last year in the Spring Creek area; Dennis Price, Elko County road superintendent, told the board the update mostly adds classifications and the roads accepted last year, and that “we're gonna have to do is, provide this classification as well. So there's some traffic data that we'll need to collect and some different things that we'll need to do to determine that class.” The board also discussed but deferred adding Martin Avenue to the maintenance list pending further evaluation and traffic data collection.

Why it matters: commissioners said the housekeeping changes make the county’s inventory accurate and help prioritize maintenance work; residents pressed the county to do more dust control and to require paved roads for new subdivisions to protect air quality and health.

Most of the board’s action was procedural: staff recommended approval of the Maintenance Plan amendment and the board approved the changes by voice vote. The board also awarded the Elko County Roads microsurfacing project (EL2025308) to SNC, with a motion awarding the contract in the amount of $134,000. Road staff described the treatment as a “type 2 and type 3” microsurfacing/slurry seal; Price said those treatments “are a little bit more expensive than a chip seal, but they last longer,” and that the county expects “7 to 10 years on these type 3 micros.” Price also said microsurfacing “provides some additional structural value to the road as well” and tends to reduce loose aggregate and calls about broken windshields that are common after chip seals.

During the public comment period Lonnie Dietrich, a resident who said she moved to Elko County in 2022, urged the county to require paved roads in new developments and to be more transparent about how road funds are spent. Dietrich said she was speaking about dust, unpaved roads and perceived shifts of maintenance costs to new property buyers: “The lack of adequate road maintenance and the ongoing approval of new developments without requiring paved roads ... dusty, untamed unmaintained roads have become a serious issue impacting air quality, visibility, and even public health risks like valley fever.” She asked the commission to “enforce regulations requiring developers to pave roads in new subdivisions, increase your transparency regarding road maintenance funding and responsibilities ... prioritize dust control efforts, including more consistent road grading and suppressants in all areas of Elko County.”

Board members replied that adding a road to the maintenance list requires traffic data and classification work before formal county maintenance begins, and that when developers seek full subdivisions they will have to submit road improvement and development plans and contribute to road upgrades and maintenance when that subdivision review happens.

Ending: The board approved the maintenance-plan amendment and the microsurfacing contract by voice vote and directed staff to return with additional data about classifying proposed additions (including Martin Avenue). Members of the public who raised concerns about dust control were told that the county will follow standard procedures for classifying and accepting roads for maintenance and that subdivision proposals would be the appropriate venue to require developer-funded road improvements.