Hearing date set for Pine Creek road validation

WALLACE — A public hearing has been set by the Shoshone Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) concerning the validation of a stretch of road in the West Fork of Pine Creek.

Paul Loutzenhiser, a local off-road vehicle enthusiast and member of the North Idaho Trailblazers (NITB), voiced his desire to see a widely discussed section of road at the southern tip of West Fork of Pine Creek Road validated.

“I am requesting the validation of West Pine Creek Road,” Loutzenhiser wrote in an email to the BOCC. “Specifically the section that travels along the Avery’s property into BLM (Bureau of Land Management) managed lands. With the extensive history of public use, I believe that this is a public road (and) should be officially verified as such.”

The process is not a simple one and Shoshone County Commissioner Mike Fitzgerald previously explained just what goes into getting a road validated.

“When the roadway is not within a designated county right of way or defined within the County Roadway Inventory, the county does not impose authority nor intervene,” Fitzgerald said. “For roads not in these two categories, individuals can ask the county to make a determination of the county's interest in a road. The determination is a formal process defined in Idaho Code called ‘validation.’ If asked to validate a road, the county is then obligated under Idaho Code to make a determination of whether or not the road is a county or a non-county road.”

According to Idaho Code 40-203A, any resident or property holder within a county or highway district system, including the state of Idaho or any of its subdivisions, or any agency of the federal government, may petition the board of county or highway district commissioners, whichever shall have jurisdiction of the highway system, to initiate public proceedings to validate a highway or public right-of-way, including those which furnish public access to state and federal public lands and waters.

With this process now moving toward the hearing-phase, once that has happened the BOCC will be tasked with determining whether validation of the highway or public right-of-way is in the public interest.

And then, depending on how they rule on their decision, anyone who may be affected by the decision, or any agency of the federal government, may appeal to the district court of the county in which the highway or public right-of-way is located.

Should the BOCC decide that a survey is needed for the purpose of determining a validation, the survey will be recorded in the county records and the county will need to amend the official highway system map of the respective county or highway district.

Fitzgerald outlined some of the criteria for determining a road’s validation, including showing any bit of active maintenance, historical use and county expenditures on the road.

This particular section of land has been at the forefront of several recent stories following a 2020 incident where Joe Avery placed a blockade of trees across the road to prevent people from recreating in the area — which was promptly removed following action from the county.

In the time since, several conflicting viewpoints have come forward to discuss the merits of Avery’s actions, as well as to condemn them.

During a previous interview with Avery, he discussed how there are two different roads near his property that allow people to access a section of lands owned by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for recreational purposes.

One of those roads, locally known as the Langlois Road, or Coeur d’Alene NFD 2313 Road, has very specific seasonal closures on it and partially cuts through a section of property owned by Avery.

The other road is an unmaintained extension of West Fork Pine Creek Road that appears on Shoshone County’s GIS (geographic information system) parcel information as some sort of right-of-way that cuts through property owned by the Averys and Hancock Forest Management before heading back into BLM lands.

The lands in particular are near Middle Fork Pine Creek Road and are specifically designated by the BLM as “a motorized trail for rock crawling (extreme 4WD) activities,” according to the Action RC-1.5.7 in its Resource Management Plan (RMP).

The public hearing for the West Fork Pine Creek Road validation is scheduled for March 29, at 2 p.m. at the Shoshone County Courthouse.

During a public hearing, the BOCC will hear testimony from anyone who would like to provide it, either in favor, against or neutral to the petition.

Written testimony may also be submitted, but it must be to the courthouse before the time of the hearing.