New documents reopen appeal window in road validation

WALLACE — Last Thursday, the Shoshone Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) adopted the Findings of Fact and Conclusions concerning the appeal of their decision not to validate a section of West Fork Pine Creek Road.

This document directly correlates to the BOCC’s decision not to overturn a 2022 decision by the board concerning the validation of the West Fork Pine Creek Road.

The original petition, filed by Kootenai County resident Paul Loutzenhiser, an off-road vehicle enthusiast and member of the North Idaho Trailblazers (NITB), was for the purposes of validating a section of road that intersects through multiple different property owners before heading into lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Also on the petition were Silver Valley native Bob Jutila and NITB president Wayne Hallgren.

The petitioners had been represented in the proceedings of their appeal by David Claiborne, an attorney with Sawtooth Law Offices, who also serves on the Idaho Recreation Council.

This was the second time the BOCC has adopted a ‘findings of fact” document in this petition.

According to commissioner Tracy Casady, there were members of the community who felt as though critical information was missing from the former document — which essentially shows the basis for any denial or approval made by the BOCC.

It also includes the names of persons who made public statements in opposition to the validation.

The BOCC’s decision came after two different hearings, which included hours of testimony for and against the petition, as well as more than 200 pages of historical documents, the BOCC ruled in favor of the opposition and denied the application.

Several reasons were given for the opposition, these included specific points like the potential environmental impact, crossing private land, noise complaints, and the overall legality of the application potentially being approved.

Then-BOCC Chairman Jay Huber had explained that despite all of the testimony and evidence presented, any sort of validation would require extensive and expensive surveying to satisfy requirements from the Bureau of Land Management — who would likely require the county to apply for a right-of-way grant for any sort of validation.

“It would cost thousands of dollars and we don’t know how far up the road we’d have to go,” Huber said. “I also found no recorded documents for the last survey that was done for this section of the road, and no work has been done on this section since 1974.”

Huber also informed the News-Press that any surveying would start at an estimated $20,000.

With the adoption of these amended findings of fact, a 28-day clock for appeal has restarted for the petitioners — which would likely result in a judicial review if they decide to re-appeal the decision.