Land Services Director Tim Nelson recommended that the commissioners accept the proposal submitted by Host Compliance for providing assistance to the county for their implementation and compliance monitoring of the vacation rental-licensing program.
Following the July 9, 2019 meeting, commissioners authorized an advertisement for an Internet-based company to provide assistance to the county for the implementation and ongoing compliance monitoring of the recently adopted vacation rental-licensing program. Local businesses were first sought, and when none was forthcoming the county had three out-of-county providers to select from. From those, Nelson said Host Compliance stood out from the other two.
The proposal cost appears that it would be supported, said Nelson, along with an increase of a Land Services staff member’s time from 35 hours/ week to 40 hours/week, while setting the license fee annually at no more than $200.
Host Compliance will be paid $21,057 per year for its service. LODGINGRevs bid was $21,780, but less than Host Company in the future. CGI bid $48,000 per year and was well above the other two bidders.
Nelson said it is anticipated that whatever the annual license fees are set at, they will more than cover the cost of the compliance monitoring as well as increasing current staff hours from 35-40 hours/ per week. Extra staff time will be used to handle any resulting enforcement issues that may arise.
Commissioners voted unanimously to hire Host Compliance and a hearing will be held at a later date to set the annual fee for the vacation rental-licensing program.
Hearings held for subordinate roads
Commissioners held a hearing at 9 a.m. to consider petitions asking the county board to establish a subordinate service district for summer and road maintenance for the Kelly Hill area (Kelly’s Ridge, Kelly’s Hill, Bloomquist Mountain and Bloomquist Road).
More than 20 people signed the petition requesting the county to care for the roads, with the maintenance cost assessed equally on each of the resident’s property.
The majority of people appearing before commissioners asked for the county to set up and manage the subordinate district. County highway engineer Krysten Foster gave a brief overview of how that would work.
Dave Harvey, one of the speakers, said that John Bloomquist, age 78, has been maintaining the road as a “labor of love,” but it is time for the county to manage care of the road.
The county board did not act on the request at the meeting, but will take it up at a later meeting.
Camp 20 Road
At 9:45 a.m. the commissioners announced that they couldn’t hold an official second public hearing to consider adopting a Subordinate Government Service District for summer road maintenance for Camp 20 Road because notice of the meeting wasn’t advertised in the newspaper.
However Auditor/ Treasurer Braidy Powers told the people who came to address the commissioners that their comments would be counted when the official meeting was held August 27.
Seventy-two landowners who own one or more properties accessed from Camp 20 Road from the intersection of Cook County 70 and Hong Hill to the intersection of Camp 20 Road and the Greenwood River Road signed the petition, but some complained that since they signed the petition the project had grown larger than anticipated.
One concern was that Firewise and Emergency Services have requested that all SGSD’s be brushed and the roads widened to accommodate emergency vehicles, a subject that rubbed most of the speakers the wrong way.
The area in question is accessed by Camp 20 Road from Hong Hill north, about a distance of 4.2 miles to the Camp 15 Loop and includes all (100 plus) property owners.
The majority of people who spoke said they wanted the road to stay as a minimally maintained road. Some that originally signed the petition asking the county to put the road in SGSD announced they were withdrawing their signature because the scope of the project was larger than they anticipated.
Butch Hassler has lived on the Camp 20 Road fulltime since 2002. He said, “It’s not a county road,” and he asked, “Just leave it the way it is,” and finished by saying, “We just want to be out in the woods and live.”
That sentiment was echoed over and over again by the people who came before the county board.
The county board will address the petition request at its August 27 meeting.
BWCA land transfer
Cook County attorney Molly Hicken announced that the long-awaited land exchange between the USDA/Forest Service and Cook County is once again nearing completion. Molly said the deal was almost completed in the fall of 2018, but a disagreement about deed language between the federal government and state government halted the process. The state technically holds the county lands “in trust” for Cook County.
The two parties have now agreed on deed language, said Hicken, and the state deed has been drafted and ready for the exchange, with that supposed to take place sometime this month, although there is no specific date set.
The land exchange includes “transferring an odd assortment of county owned lands within the BWCA to federal ownership, and an odd assortment of federally-owned parcels outside of the BWCA to county ownership,” and has been pending for more than a decade.
A motion was made and passed authorizing any one of the commissioners or Auditor/Treasurer Braidy Powers to sign the document once it has been sent to the county.
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