MEMORANDUM

KENAI PENINSULA BOROUGH

LEGAL DEPARTMENT

144 N. Binkley Street Tel. (907) 262-8609

Soldotna, Alaska 99669 Fax (907) 262-8686

TO: Timothy Navarre, Assembly President

Members, Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly

THRU: Dale Bagley, Mayor

FROM: Holly B. Montague, Assistant Borough Attorney

CC: Gary Davis, Roads Director

DATE: September 6, 2001

SUBJECT: Ordinance amending decertification process

Following is a list of the proposed amendments to the decertification procedures approved by the road service area board at its August 14, 2001 meeting:

� Titles are added to the paragraphs regarding procedures to help clarify and organize the process.

� It is clarified that posting of roads proposed for decertification is only applicable to somewhat constructed, somewhat drivable roads. It is pointless if not impossible to post roads that are forests or stream beds.

� The publication, posting, and public hearing requirements are retained but the language is modified to make it easier for staff to interpret and comply with these requirements.

� One of the most burdensome procedures in the current decertification process is waiting between three and nine months if a single objection, even if meritless, has been made to decertification. There is also currently no requirement that the objection be in writing. Oral comments are often equivocal in nature; therefore, the code is revised to require that the objection be made in writing. A public hearing is still required before the board because the board could make a decision based on testimony that decertification should be denied or delayed until further alternatives to decertification are explored.

� A public hearing is still required before the assembly, but the 30-day notice requirement is omitted. The road will already have received at least one hearing before the RSA board with both published and posted notice. The assembly decertification resolution will be advertised in the paper as part of the meeting agenda and will be available on the borough website as is the practice for all assembly resolutions.

� There is still a requirement for the decertification to become effective during summer months (May 15-September 15); however, this limitation on the timing of decertification is made applicable only to roads that have received maintenance within five years before decertification. This change is recommended because the current criteria of the road "never" having received maintenance is administratively difficult to ascertain, especially for roads that may have been occasionally maintained in the 1980s when state money was plentiful and there were four separate road service areas. Additionally, the decertification deadline of September 15 coordinates with the annual submittal of mileage to the state of Alaska for road maintenance funding.

� There is still a signage requirement for roads decertified for maintenance, but again a five-year window is inserted since it is pointless to provide a warning that maintenance has ceased if maintenance has not even occasionally occurred within the past five years. Also some of the roads that have been or will be decertified are not quite recognizable as roads, again indicating the futility of a notice that maintenance has ceased.

The above recommendations approved by RSA board vote on August 14, 2001.

Stan A. McLane, RSA Chair