Commissioners discuss gating rural roads
To gate or not to gate rural roads in the hills above McMinnville. That is the question. Yamhill County commissioners were asked this morning to remove two gates on High Heaven Road. The request from Mary Bryant. She believes the public should have access to public lands on a public road.
Those gates, two alongside the road and one across, have apparently been there for 20 years and where put there to decrease nuisance traffic and trash dumping. Now, commissioners have been asked to remove the gates.
This has prompted a larger discussion on the appropriateness of gating many of the rural roads in prime hunting ground above McMinnville. Boyd Shard of Dayton says he’s concerned gates on many roads are barring hunters from accessing prime hunting grounds, and most of those lucky enough to get permits from Weyerhauser are “out of area” hunters.
Still others like Alan Schwartz warned opening the gates will allow more dumping and parties. He said some people treat High Heaven road as “the end of the world”, and that’s where they go to dump trash.
Commissioner Kulla made a motion to develop an ordinance setting policy on gates on public roads. After some discussion, it was decided to discuss the High Heaven Road gate February 5th and possibly discuss an overall gating policy at a later date. The video of today’s (Thursday) meeting is at KLYCRadio on Facebook and our website at KLYCMEDIA.COM
