SAGLE — The Bonner County commission defended its decision Tuesday to accept $100,000 from landowners on Wooded Acres Drive to help pave their road.

The board unanimously agreed to accept the money from Wooded Acres Improvements LLC and enter into a memorandum of understanding with the group. The county is providing the labor and equipment to apply a bituminous surface treatment to the road.

“That $100,000 will cover about 63 percent of the materials cost for this project,” said Matt Mulder, Bonner County’s staff engineer.

The arrangement has raised the ire of landowners, notably those along Lakeshore Drive, who argue it sets up a pay-to-play system that disregards a tradition of upgrading roads based on traffic counts and other considerations.

Former Commissioner Jerry Clemons said prior boards have resisted taking money from landowners to improve roads.

“It meant that people with higher resources would jump ahead in the line to get their work done and the people with limited resources couldn’t,” said Clemons.

Commissioner Dan McDonald said the Wooded Acres is a unique situation because a substantial portion of the road boarders land owned by the state of Idaho, which means taxes for road improvements cannot be collected.

McDonald added that Lakeshore Drive residents could have also pitched in complete the paving of their road but chose not to. However, the county is obtaining a $100,000 grant through the Idaho Transportation Department’s Local Highway Technical Assistance Council’s local rural highway investment program to offset material costs for paving the last 3 1/2 miles of Lakeshore.

McDonald also contends the arrangement will end up saving the county money over the long haul because it costs less to maintain a hard-surfaced road than a gravel one.

“When you look at this from an overall cost-savings standpoint, I extrapolate that over 25 years that the county is going to save a couple hundred thousands of dollars

Commissioner Steven Bradshaw agreed. He said one less stretch of unimproved road means less costly spring maintenance.

“If you can eliminate that you’ve saved a lot of money and you’ve freed up these guys to go take care of other roads that aren’t paved,” Bradshaw said.

Commission Chairman Jeff Connolly preferred to view the arrangement as a “partnership” and controversy is often unavoidable when a decision to improve a road is made.

“It’s always controversial when you pick any road to hard surface over any other road. It’s one of the toughest decisions these commissioners have to make,” he said.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.