Paving Delay Frustrates Saltese Road Residents Road Project Was Supposed To Be Done June 1

Optimism is a good thing. Unless you’re a county road engineer.

That’s a lesson Verril Smale, Spokane County engineering administrator, learned the hard way last week when a group of frustrated, asphalt-hungry Valley residents, armed with a list of broken promises, took their case to county commissioners.

Last December, about 100 residents of the Saltese Flats area formed a road improvement district (RID) and agreed to pay about $500,000 to pave the rough, dusty, graveled Saltese Lake Road near their homes.

They said the county originally told them the project would be finished by June 1. The date later was changed to July 1. By mid-August, with still no construction in sight, residents’ frustration peaked.

The group took its complaints to county commissioners, appealing for answers - and help.

When the dust finally settled this week, nearly everyone had learned a lesson.

“Maybe we take on more than we should,” admitted Smale. “We get a little optimistic.”

Bill Clausen, a Saltese resident and leader in the effort to form the RID, learned that the process is even more complicated and time consuming than he had ever imagined. He also leaned that it requires a lot of patience.

“I know what (the county) is going through - the problems they’re facing,” said Clausen, “I guess it’s typical stuff when you try to get a road paved.”

The Saltese residents used the resolution method to form the RID. They took the paving proposal to the county, which calculated how much the project would cost each individual land owner benefiting from it. The owner then voted on the project. They got one vote for each dollar they would owe.

Citizen-driven RID projects like this one seem to be increasing as new residents, especially those coming from urban areas, move into rural parts of the Valley, county officials said.

Residents along winding Saltese Lake Road have for nearly a decade kicked around the idea of reducing dust and vehicle damage by paving the roadway. Last December, they finally won enough votes for the 3.5-mile project, which would pave the road, which is east of Barker Road, between 32nd Avenue and Elk Creek Lane.

The advantage of forming a RID is that it allows private citizens to pay for a project over 10 years.

It takes two years to complete most RIDs, so the Saltese Lake Road project is actually progressing normally, Spokane County Commissioner Kate McCaslin said.

The problem in this case, she said, was that promises were made that could not be kept.

A long winter delayed necessary survey work earlier this year and put the project behind schedule, McCaslin said.

The surveying revealed a serious problem: the roadway to be paved actually includes about 20 pieces of private land. County officials must now meet with all the affected property owners to discuss easements.

Another factor in the delay is the fact that the county is currently working on two other RIDs.

So Saltese Lake Road, established in the 1890s, will probably go one more winter without an asphalt coat, county officials said.

While some residents are angry, Clausen is philosophical.

“I really didn’t know it was going to require this much effort on a continuing basis,” he said.

The RID project, he said, has been a long, bumpy road.

, DataTimes