Adventure Trails hearing postponed until January
Inyo County Administrative Officer Kevin Carunchio announced Wednesday that the Public Hearing for the ATV Adventure Trails Pilot Project scheduled for Dec. 30 in Independence, has been rescheduled once again, this time to Jan. 22 at 10 a.m. in Independence.
The Adventure Trails project connects off-road trails to Town roads, and allows off-road vehicles to travel legally on designated Town routes to access services.
The change was made due to concern over the State Fair Political Practices Commission’s recently-changed regulation regarding the “500-foot rule” under the state’s Conflict of Interest Regulations of the Political Reform Act. The change to the 500-foot-rule was supposed to clarify; it has only added more confusion.
The County will seek guidance as to which memebers of the Inyo Board of Supervisors can participate in the hearing and decision-making process.
The hearing was originally scheduled for Dec. 2.
It is “out of an abundance of caution,” says Inyo County Counsel Margaret Kemp-Williams, “that the County has cancelled and rescheduled the meeting.” The additional time allows the FPPC to provide the County with a legal opinion.
The Sheet looked at the conflict of interest paperwork on file with the Inyo County Clerk’s Office for all five county supervisors (six, if you include the newly-elected incoming supervisor, Dan Totheroh in January) and there does not appear to be any obvious benefit from business interests outside of owning or living in a home or owning/leasing property within the 500-foot rule’s reach.
Some residents living along the proposed combined-use roadways argue that the project threatens their property values. No one has offered any supporting evidence however that property values have been affected negatively elsewhere in the country with similar projects. One such project, the Paiute Trail System in South-Central Utah, has been in existence since 1990 and has been thoroughly studied. It has proven to provide significant economic benefits to many small communities whose economic outlook was threatened when a main highway thoroughfare was rerouted away from them.
Other concerns by opponents include possible air and noise pollution, environmental concerns, and both County and City of Bishop liability issues stemming from ATV use of selected streets close to trailheads.
Proponents argue that there are clearly economic benefits to the plan based on the experience of other communities with similar program, that ATV-users are already here using many of these roads, the project would set boundaries and establish rules that currently do not exist.
According to Kemp-Williams, she was contacted last Friday by an FPPC representative and was told that the FPPC’s due date for providing the County with a ruling is Jan. 12, 2015. Based on this information, he advised the county that it would be prudent to wait for FPPC guidance, explaining that without a ruling from the FPPC, each member of the Board of Supervisors would need to make an individual decision about their respective ability to participate.
With the change in date, newly-elected First District Inyo County Supervisor, Dan Totheroh, will now be voting on the project rather than Linda Arcularius whose term expires at the end of December. Provided, of course, he is deemed not to have a conflict of interest.
