A petition to pave KM Ranch Road using a cost-sharing Rural Special Improvement District has been withdrawn amid neighborhood opposition.

Marshall Friedman, who lives on KM Ranch Road and has been working with others for three years to get about 6 miles of the gravel road paved, sent a letter to the Flathead County commissioners on Wednesday, stating he is withdrawing the petition and supporting documentation for the creation of the district.

The proposed district included 157 lots, with the cost split between the county and the property owners. The county intended to chip in $2.5 million, or 64.5 percent of the $3.9 million project, leaving KM Ranch Road property owners within the designated district to pay the remaining $1.4 million.

“This does stop the project from moving forward,” County Administrator Mike Pence said about Friedman’s request. “The commissioners have no interest in moving forward without the support of the neighbors.”

The documentation will remain on file with the county, Pence said, because it has value if there’s any future interest in paving from KM Ranch Road residents.

A vocal group of opponents came forward in recent weeks to say they can’t afford the $650 annual cost per lot over the 20-year life of the special district. Many are longtime residents who have had the land in their families for decades.

Friedman said he was blindsided by the opposition.

“This whole opposition has only come up in the last three months,” he said. “Three months ago we started getting all this negativity. It’s hard to know how to deal with it ... where were they three, two or one year ago?”

Longtime KM Ranch Road resident Jolene Mikesell, whose husband, Marvin, 75, was born in the house in which they live, said halting the paving project is “an answer to our prayers.”

She said their cost over 20 years would have been $54,000 and would have forced them to sell their property.

Mikesell questioned the use of a Rural Special Improvement District not only for KM Ranch Road but any other area where some property owners are opposed to paying the annual assessments.

After the opposition came to light, Friedman said he developed a plan to work collaboratively with neighbors to find a solution to the paving issue.

He envisioned forming committees of volunteers to work on various neighborhood issues and had gone so far as to hire a mediator to lead a meeting planned Thursday night. That meeting was canceled when opposition to his efforts continued.

His idea was to form a fundraising committee to raise enough money so each property owner would have to pay the assessment for just one parcel.

“In one day we raised $36,000,” Friedman said. “It was a fair [proposal]. It was neighbor helping neighbor.”

He decided to wash his hands of the project when he received a call from one of the naysayers, who told him some property owners opposed to the paving “don’t want to take charity or welfare.

“What bothered me was that call, that this group of about three people will torpedo this in any way they can,” Friedman said.

While money was the driving force behind the opposition, it wasn’t the only issue with paving.

Some neighbors feared that paving the remaining gravel segment of KM Ranch Road would make it a high-speed through road. They pointed out that Canadians already often use the gravel road as a cut-across route to Kalispell.

Key benefits to paving the road are eliminating a chronic road dust problem and increasing property values, Friedman and other proponents maintained.

“KM will be paved; it’s only a matter of time,” Friedman said. “KM is changing and properties are for sale. People will be building new houses and those people want to have a paved road ... it will reach a critical mass that no [opposition] group can stop.”

Instead of paying $650 or less per year for the annual assessment, Friedman said a future paving district could cost property owners $1,000 or more per parcel.

Pence said money that was earmarked for KM Ranch road in the county’s capital improvement plan will be shifted to other road projects.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com