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Linn County to seek legal draft resolving Tanglewood road status; other service requests moved to workshop
Summary
Commissioners agreed to ask county legal counsel to draft a resolution clarifying whether roads in the Tanglewood lake community are private and to present it to residents; other partnership requests were referred to a workshop or staff for follow-up.
Commissioner Jason Hightower asked county legal staff to draft a resolution clarifying whether roads within the Tanglewood lake development are private, and the commission agreed to present a draft to Tanglewood residents for review.
Hightower said he was "okay with moving forward with the resolution on public roads," and commissioners directed staff to have legal prepare a draft and deliver it to Tanglewood for comment. The board did not adopt the resolution at the meeting; commissioners said the draft should go to Tanglewood and then to legal counsel for review before any final action.
The issue arose after a meeting between county staff and Tanglewood leaders who also proposed a set of cooperative measures. Tanglewood residents asked the county to consider allowing lake communities to piggyback on county purchases — such as culvert or sign orders — and to explore limited services such as defined snow-plowing of main loops for storms that exceed a set depth, neighborhood-watch support, scheduled dumpster days and targeted rock deliveries.
Jim Hendershot, a Tanglewood resident, said a resolution that establishes road status should also include the items the community and the county had agreed on so there is "no question going forward as to what was agreed upon and what wasn't." Don Benedetti, another Tanglewood resident, told commissioners the delay in clarifying road status has left local road maintenance stalled: "since the decision was made that they are public roads, we have not maintained our roads at all… The roads are getting really bad."
Commissioners said some items — such as a resolution on road status — should be routed to legal counsel for drafting, while operational requests that raise procurement or tax issues (for example, whether private residents can be included on county purchase orders) require a broader workshop to examine feasibility and legal constraints. The commission identified trash-day expansion and signage as potentially simpler items to address, while culvert purchases and tax implications would need further legal and administrative review.
No formal vote to adopt a resolution occurred at the meeting. The commissioners instructed staff to: (1) ask county counsel to draft a resolution clarifying road status for Tanglewood; (2) present that draft to Tanglewood for review; and (3) schedule a workshop to examine other partnership requests and procurement/tax implications.
The county also noted residents planned to meet separately with the sheriff to request increased patrol presence on holidays and weekends.
If passed later, the resolution would be a county-level action clarifying public‑vs‑private road status and any attendant county commitments; commissioners stressed that any final wording would come back to the board after legal review and resident comment.
