In recent weeks, property owners in Copper Mountain Mesa were given a choice through a mail in ballot measure. They had to decide whether to keep the annual $20 assessment for road maintenance at the present level of service, or shell out an additional $40 a year for much improved road maintenance. Reporter Mike Lipsitz has the final tally…
Anyone who has attempted to drive down Winters Road, the main east/west artery in that community, is aware of the extremely poor, at times impassable, conditions there. Bad as the roads are, a majority of residents in the small unincorporated community chose to keep the road assessment at $20, unchanged since 1986. Of the 787 ballots cast, 56 percent came in against any increase; 43 percent favored paying an additional $40 yearly for regular monthly maintenance of the more than 90 miles of graded dirt roads there; two ballots were invalid. Roads conditions there have been in steady decline for years because the $20 per parcel assessment pays for considerably less road work in 2017 than it did in 1986. The results come as somewhat of a surprise since a straw poll conducted last year by the county suggested that Copper Mountain Mesa was one of the few local unincorporated communities that would favor an increased assessment.
COPPER MOUNTAIN MESA ROAD ASSESSMENT FAILS
