County inaction on local access roads ‘unfair, unconstitutional, unacceptable’

Presenter: Lane County is asked to right a wrong that has left many River Road and Santa Clara residents feeling like second-class citizens. During public comment June 24, Linda Lovick:

Linda Lovick: I’m returning to petition you all again on behalf of us local access road residents in River Road and Santa Clara neighborhoods. The vast majority of us in this situation just learned our LAR status and its implications a few months ago.

[00:00:28] As a reminder, these LARs are first and foremost geographically within the Lane County public road system. LARs are connected to, feed into, lead off of county-maintained roads. And in every other way, most LARs are indistinguishable from the county-maintained roads. They also are within the much-later-developed urban growth boundary, which the county uses to resist declaring the LARs part of its system and further requires the city to annex them.

[00:00:59] The city of Eugene pushes back, saying LARs should rest with the county. Meanwhile, homeowners on LARs are involuntarily placed in this artificially created limbo with no end in sight.

[00:01:12] The fundamental effect of this limbo is the unfair burden of responsibility for LAR maintenance and repairs and maybe even road users’ harms placed on these homeowners.

[00:01:23] Again, as a reminder, the LARs are used exactly like the county-maintained roads and while all our transportation taxes are collected identically, those taxes from LAR residents are not fairly or equitably applied to their own public road when it’s designated an LAR. This remains unacceptable. Both sides claim money shortfalls, meaning the county and the city.

[00:01:49] I get this. What I don’t get is your unwillingness so far to give proper corrective attention to this injustice, this inequality of treatment of county residents. I would assert here that if any of you commissioners or your Public Works Department colleagues lived on an LAR, none of you would pass it off with a sympathetic nod.

[00:02:14] This situation, rearing its ugly head now in 2025, took decades of inattention, but we know where there’s a will, there’s a way. It’s just a matter of intentionality. We are simply asking that Lane County declares the designated LARs part of its Lane County road system in their current condition.

[00:02:41] We don’t demand immediate maintenance. Rather, we beseech Lane County to correct the injustice and slot the LARs into the maintenance schedule for an equal chance of maintenance at the appropriate time of need equal to all the other county-maintained roads in residential Eugene.

[00:02:56] It just takes the will to admit an old inherited mistake, an injustice, an old lapse, and to correct the wrong. Voters respect honesty and humility, the admission of a gap and commitment to fill it.

[00:03:10] Presenter: A member of the River Road Community Organization board, Laura Shoe:

[00:03:15] Laura Shoe: I’m Laura Shoe. I’m speaking for myself this morning, not for the RRCO board.

[00:03:20] In your work session on local access roads, Public Works presented you not with the information that you’d need to make the right decision, but instead with the excuses to justify inaction.

[00:03:34] They told you that the budget is in bad shape, but they presented no evidence showing that accepting these 12 miles of roads into the road system would materially impact the current 1,400 miles.

[00:03:49] They told you that these roads are LARs because developers built substandard roads to save money. Well, that’s true, possibly, of a few LARs in the UGB. It is not true of most of them. Most of them are identical to county-maintained roads. We’ve told you that this is deeply unfair, particularly since LAR homeowners pay the same taxes as those on county-maintained roads. But it hasn’t so far moved you to action.

[00:04:21] Let me be clear on the depth of the injustice here. Lane County is violating the U.S. and Oregon constitutional rights of LAR homeowners to equal protection under the law. There is no rational basis for the unequal treatment that is not unfair and discriminatory.

[00:04:45] You cannot grant privileges under the Oregon constitution to some citizens which upon the same terms do not belong equally to all citizens and certainly being on roads that function and even look the same and paying the same taxes constitutes same terms.

[00:05:11] Now our roads cannot wait for annexation. Only about 17% of LAR homes in the River Road neighborhood are annexed and that’s probably similar on county-maintained roads. The county must care for these roads in the meantime or the city will never be afford to take on the crumbled mess that results. It’s your job as elected officials to cut through staff excuses and to protect the citizens of this county.

[00:05:44] Please end these constitutional rights violations and accept these roads into the county road system. Also, please accept our invitation to take you and staff on a tour of our neighborhood as we’ve done with Commissioner (Ryan) Ceniga and Councilor (Lyndsie) Leech so that you can see our perspective firsthand. And Commissioner Ceniga knows how to get in touch with me. Thank you very much.

[00:06:10] Presenter: Eleanor Lepinski:

[00:06:11] Eleanor Lepinski: Hi. Boy, Linda and Laura did a beautiful job of describing our situation. I must just agree with what they said. I only have a couple of comments to throw in.

[00:06:23] I’m really concerned about this argument that’s been laid out that there were developers who did a poor job of putting in roads and that’s why these roads are designated LARs. I don’t believe this.

[00:06:37] I know that in the case of our house, it was built by the original owners. And as I look around and I see the other houses on our road, they’re different, they’re unique. Now developers, that’s not how they build. They build similar houses ’cause it’s too expensive and there’s nothing in it for them to build really different houses. So personally, I really doubt that.

[00:07:02] And I would like to say that this argument be proven or substantiated in some way or that it just be abandoned and not be used as a reason not to take care of our roads.

[00:07:17] Secondly, I want to know where our tax money has gone for road maintenance. So our house is like 60 years old and the other houses in our neighborhood are similarly eight decades old. So, for all those years, road maintenance taxes have been paid. I want to know what the plan is for refunding us that money, since it has not been used to take care of our roads.

[00:07:45] And then finally, I’m really disappointed with the reaction that the board has taken on this. To me, it’s just a very clear injustice. It’s not fair that we have been treated this way. We should be treated like everybody else for paying our taxes like everybody else. And I would expect some outrage and some dedication to fixing this problem from the board.

[00:08:13] And I just don’t feel right now like the money that’s being paid for the salaries of the board is giving me my taxpayer’s money worth and I’m being very straightforward about this and very direct. I’m just telling you fact, I’m really unhappy with the reaction.

[00:08:34] Presenter: Joel Korin:

[00:08:35] Joel Korin: Do you ever feel like a second-class citizen? That’s pretty much the way we feel about this issue. The definition, state definition of a public road is over which the public has a right of use. That is a matter of record. The public clearly is using all the roads that are LARs in River Road and Santa Clara.

[00:09:04] It’s just the fact that we’re not a matter of record. Well, why not? We’re told it’s historical. When was your road built? Well, saying that it’s historical is an excuse, not an explanation. There’s no reason now why these roads should be treated differently.

[00:09:25] So, well, two things. One, according to the county’s document on LARs, the sellers are supposed to give notice to prospective buyers that they are on an LAR. I know I never got any notice, and I don’t know that anybody has received any notice that you’re on an LAR. Would it have changed my mind about buying? Maybe, if I could find a similar house on a public road.

[00:10:03] The real concern that I have, and this was brought out at the meeting that we had, is the Catch-22 that we are in. If someone gets damaged, hurt riding a bicycle into a pothole on an LAR and sustained serious injury, the injured person can sue the homeowners on that block.

[00:10:38] We don’t have immunity, and the thing is that we can’t insure ourselves against that eventuality. I contacted State Farm, my carrier, and specifically asked the question: ‘I’m on an LAR? Can I buy insurance?’ The answer is: ‘No, we don’t cover what’s in the street.’

[00:11:02] So this is a major difference between us, the second-class citizens, and the people that don’t have, don’t live on LARs. And I think there are many reasons that you should accept these highways, but that protecting us, the county has immunity. The county can’t be sued. Why should we?

[00:11:31] Presenter: Homeowners on local access roads say they were never told, though they pay taxes for road maintenance, that none of their tax payments will be used to repair their own streets. They have to pay out of their own pockets. Homeowners say they also face liability and their insurance companies won’t provide coverage.