The Valley County commissioners on Monday assigned Tamarack Resort with assembling an advisory committee that will study a countywide highway taxing district.
The action came after Tamarack representatives urged commissioners to look into the creation of a countywide highway district.
The district would be able to take up road building and maintenance in case federal funding for rural counties disappears.
County roads and schools receive funds through federal "Craig-Wyden" funds, which replaced forest revenues as a means to fund rural roads and schools throughout the west.
The bill has expired and efforts to renew the funding for next year have been attached to the bill that would require U.S. troops to pull out of Iraq in August 2008. The bill is, likely to be vetoed by President George W Bush soon.
Valley County received $1.9 million from Craig-Wyden funds this year, almost all of which went to the county road department.
Tamarack government affairs director Scott Turlington is to report to the commissioners at their next meeting on newly formed advisory committee.
The advisory committee would be formed to investigate how a district might work to ensure Valley County roads continue to have funding.
Winkle asked to be included on the committee. The makeup of the committee is not known at this time, but Winkle said there would be a representative from Cascade, McCall and Donnelly.
Turlington wanted the committee to be created soon and report to the commissioners by as early as June or July.
"In our minds this is a very important decision and it reduces the commissioners' burden," Turlington said.
"This should have been brought up three years ago," Winkle said.
Commissioner Frank Eld suggested county road superintendent Gordon Cruickshank should also be on the committee.
Eld also said he was struggling with the idea of having only one developer on the committee and suggested the committee may also have other large developers in the county named to the committee.
Cruickshank warned against making the committee too large and suggested it could have subcommittees.
"The committee needs to be chosen very carefully," Eld said. Commissioner Tom Kerr warned that the process was not simple.
"I don't think we have any choice," Eld said. `As a commission we need to commit ourselves. We have to sell a tax. We are faced with a loss of a great deal of money. We need to do it expeditiously."
McCall officials were willing to work with the county on the advisory committee, but Mayor Bill Robertson was not in favor of creating a highway district.
"I am not at all interested in turning the city roads over to the county," Robertson said. "If it were outside the city of McCall, I still don't see any evidence that separate districts work."
While Robertson agreed the county could have a difficult future should Craig-Wyden funds not be renewed, he would work against any ballot measure that included the streets of McCall in the district.
"The city of McCall would fight it," he said. "We are very happy with our public works department."
City Manager Lindley Kirkpatrick said he looked forward to working with the county as it tries to solve road concerns in the county.
"We hope we can participate with them in their evaluation of the creation of the highway district," he said. He did not voice an opinion on highway districts.
