Board approves county maintenance of portion of County 8th Street; supervisors raise taxpayer concerns

The Yuma County Board of Supervisors voted to approve Resolution No. 2026-06 to add a portion of County 8th Street into the county roadway maintenance system, after hearing from county engineering staff and the applicant.

Veronica Seda, agent for the Department of Engineering, described the petition and said the section under consideration lies just east of the Union Pacific Railroad and Highway 95, south of the Gowen Milling Company. She told the board the applicant had agreed to build the road to county standards if the county accepted it into the maintenance system.

Marisol Kellen, president of GCE Gutierrez Canales Engineering, represented the applicant and said two nearby mines (including Don Peterson Enterprises) and Gowen Milling depend on the roadway. "These two mines produce material that are critical to the infrastructure of the city of Yuma and Yuma County as a whole," she told the board, saying the road needs improvement so semi trucks can safely access the sites.

Several supervisors pressed staff and the applicant about the county's long-term maintenance costs and whether the road would primarily serve private entities. One supervisor said the county does not generally accept private roads for maintenance when they primarily benefit a single company and asked that the public benefit be clear before the county assumes ongoing costs.

After opening a public hearing with no public comments, the board moved and seconded the resolution and voted to accept the roadway into the county system.

The motion included direction that the applicant construct or bring the road up to county standards before acceptance; the county will assume maintenance thereafter. The board did not provide a detailed cost estimate during the meeting.

The action was recorded as Resolution No. 2026-06.