Letter to the Editor

The December 11 issue of the Left Hand Valley Courier noted that Niwot's Legend Ridge trail loop had been completely resurfaced by Boulder County and reopened. The article quoted the county's trails supervisor as saying, "Our legal team could not find any information about the county officially accepting the trail, but since we have been maintaining it for 20 years or so, it would indicate that the county has accepted it."

In contrast, the county's legal team already has the documents in hand showing that the county accepted responsibility to maintain subdivision roads. The county legally accepted those roads from various neighborhood developers many years ago but these roads have deteriorated significantly due to lack of attention. Without eventual repair, these roads will degenerate into hiking and biking trails.

There is generous funding for hiking and biking trails in the county. Since the county just resurfaced a trail for which it has no official acceptance documentation, is there a chance the county would do the same for a deteriorating road they did accept responsibility for? Perhaps a homeowners association should designate its deteriorating road as a future hiking and biking trail that needs repair now and see what happens.

Jim Schaefer

Niwot