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.
