Thumbnail photo by Paul Critz

Despite her initial worry that approving a purchase for a private road would open a tin of segmented invertebrates, Valerie Starkey came around to the idea of contributing $1,500 in rock for the Carole Lane area north of Crescent City.

The Del Norte County District 2 supervisor had initially told County Engineer Jon Olson on Tuesday that she would oppose adding the purchase to the budget set aside for repairs to roads not maintained by the county. Starkey’s no vote turned into a yes after her colleague, District 1 representative Darrin Short, made a motion to approve the purchase but only if the rock were used on parts of Carole Lane that are public.

“Just the public road intersections of Carole, Monopoly and Embarcadero,” Short said.

Short and his colleagues, including Starkey, approved the proposal to provide $1,500 in rock to the Carole Lane area, which, according to Olson, is a mixture of public and private easements. Starkey cast her yes vote after confirming that the funds would only be used on the public portions of Carole Lane.

District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard was absent.

Olson’s request comes after the Board of Supervisors in March agreed to finance a list of repairs to roads the county doesn’t maintain for the second year in a row. During that discussion, which Starkey wasn’t part of, the Board asked Olson to consider adding Carole Lane to the 2025-26 project list.

On Tuesday, the county engineer said he spoke with the neighborhood’s “road superintendent” who collects contributions from his neighbors, though they don’t all participate, and uses it to purchase rock. According to Olson, this neighbor does the road maintenance himself without compensation.

“I said, ‘We could probably get you like 1500-bucks in rock,’” Olson told supervisors. “He thought that would be great.”

Olson reiterated a statement he made in March to try to find a more permanent solution for those roads.

“I think it would be great if we took this money, or more money or additional funds, and invested it to bring some of the roads up to county-maintained standards and bring them into the system instead of doing bandaid fixes here and there,” he said.

Starkey, however, pointed out that when she and her colleagues created the policy in 2024, to set aside about $50,000 from the county’s general fund to repair roads that aren’t maintained by the county, private roads weren’t included.

Starkey said she would want the guidelines changed before she considered approving the Carole Lane purchase.

“I do think we’re opening up a huge can of worms by including private roads,” she said, “and for that reason, unless that guideline changes, I would be a no today on this. And I would probably be a no if the guidelines did change.”

According to District 5 Supervisor Dean Wilson, when he and his colleagues first created the policy the idea of a private road was one that served a single residence. Carole Lane, he pointed out, serves multiple dwellings and emergency vehicles must be able to access them.

Olson said that while that might have been the intent, the policy itself doesn’t define a private road as one serving only one home.

“That’s why I tried to make that clear in my board report, that it’s up to you because we’re not in alignment with the policy,” he said. “Monopoly is clearly identified as a public road and a utility easement, so we can put a caveat on it that [states] you can only use the rock on Monopoly.”

Though Olson had said the area was looking as good as it’s ever looked in his “40-plus years” of living in Del Norte County, Wilson said the main intersection in Carole Lane was in bad shape.

Short said that it’s been a long time since Carole Lane was in good shape.

“It’s a long road and serves many people and it does need some help,” he told Starkey. “I understand what you’re saying about private roads, but I wonder if we could fix the wording Supervisor Starkey is talking about to make it so we can do this more often. It needs to be done on more than just Carole Lane.”

The request to add Carole Lane to the list of street projects on roads not maintained by the county came from Board Chairman Joey Borges in March. At that meeting, the Board approved a budget for repairs to Lake Street north of Washington; Childs Avenue west of Kern and Lake streets south of Murphy; State Street west of Olive Street; and Darby Street from Hodge to Iler streets.

Those repairs are expected to cost a total of about $35,000 with the difference to be used as a buffer if the projects wind up costing more, according to Olson.