County to seek city approval for jurisdictional transfers on roads through Dana and Ottawa

County Highway Department staff said the department will pursue jurisdictional transfers of short county-owned road segments inside two municipalities, starting with a pair of County Highway segments in Dana and a segment of County Highway 20 (Champlain Street) in Ottawa.

On the Dana proposal, the staff member told the board that the city has installed additional stop signs on county highways within city limits and that "at that point, he's responsible to take care of the road ... and signage and everything like that." The staff member described the transfer as a way to avoid an ongoing enforcement and maintenance dispute: "One way we make this not a headache for us is to give him the jurisdiction of the road within the city limits." The county would retain the road outside Dana's city limits.

The staff member said both County Highway 45 and County Highway 60 segments through Dana total roughly 0.32 of a mile each. He characterized the county's financial exposure as minimal: because the county's share of motor fuel tax and motor vehicle-registration based receipts would not materially change, the transfers "is not really gonna impact too much to our federal allotment funds," the staff member said. The transcript recorded the staff member estimating the segments were small enough that federal mileage-based formula funds would be only minimally affected.

Discussion in the meeting made clear no formal jurisdictional transfer ordinance or resolution was adopted that day. The staff member said he would "reach out to him to go through this process to get him to agree to it, and then I'll come back with a formal jurisdictional transfer later on once he agrees to it." The board offered no objection during the meeting; the matter was presented as direction to staff rather than a formal vote.

Separately, staff said he will approach Ottawa about transferring County Highway 20 (Champlain Street), which the staff member described as mostly within city limits and not functioning as a county connector; the segment under discussion is roughly nine-tenths of a mile. "Both ends of the road is city," the staff member said of Champlain Street, and the county will ask the city to take over the maintenance.

Next steps given in the meeting: staff will contact the mayors and city attorneys as needed, seek their agreement to accept jurisdiction, and if accepted, return to the board with a formal transfer package for approval. No formal transfer or vote was recorded at the meeting.