Blaine County will not be allowed to make any physical changes to Lee’s Gulch Road before a decision is made by the court on whether to uphold the county’s determination that the road is public, a judge ruled on Wednesday, though the property owners who claim the road is private must continue to allow public access during the legal proceedings.
Property owners Richard and Kathleen Gouley and Wendy Chase first filed a petition for judicial review in October, asking the 5th District Court in Hailey to overturn a decision by the county commissioners the previous month to validate Lee’s Gulch Road as a county road and public highway.
“The declaration that Lee’s Gulch Road is a county and public highway causes immediate and irreparable impacts to the petitioners’ property rights, including direct harm to their property values and to the petitioners’ use and enjoyment of their property,” the petition states.
Until an official determination is made by the court, an attorney representing the property owners argued in a hearing Wednesday, the county should not be allowed to take actions such as changing, expanding or widening the road.
Blaine County doesn’t regularly maintain the road and has no plans to widen, pave or improve it, the county’s attorney told the court, though the county has periodically maintained it in the past to ensure that the public is able to access Bureau of Land Management property nearby.
Administrative District Judge Eric Wildman ultimately determined that the county will not be permitted to make any physical changes to the road while legal decisions are pending, but the property owners must continue to allow public access on the road and take no steps to impede or block access—conditions that both the county and the property owners agreed to.
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(3) comments
Wow the wealthy republicans can just buy public roads and make them private preventing people access to the river not a surprise
How would you know if they're republicans, or entitled democrats, pleasewearamuzzle?
In my opinion, the common thread between the three legal situations the County is embroiled in right is Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Tim Graves and the
legal advice that he has been giving the Commissioners. I have experienced first hand his dismissive, condescending attitude toward neighbors and he has made defamatory untrue remarks about me to the Commissioners in my appeal hearing. The Flying Heart case has cost taxpayers through Sept an additional $273,208 in outside attorney fees once this case got started. In this Lee's case, two out of three of the Commissioners made unauthorized site visits, which their attorney Christopher Meyer states "is simply not allowed". This ex parte communication can not be cured and the commissioners should have recused themselves from the decision. The third commissioner had an ex parte phone conversation and should recuse as well. Tim Graves just said that this was all fine. Taxpayers have spent $113,921 on Meyers' outside counsel for the Lee's Gulch situation through Sept. As a property tax payer, I feel that my tax dollars are being wasted - $387,000 on these two cases to date and they are not close to being finished - by keeping Tim Graves on as Deputy Prosecutor with his $135,000 salary. I believe that he should move on out of this role.
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