City may annex Weber Road, some day

In order to collect $26,000 in trail funds from Adams County for its walk and bike path project, the City of Ritzville has to be willing to do something for the county in return.

Adams County Commissioners want the city to annex 3,300 feet of Weber Road that currently borders the Ritzville City Limits. As long as the council commits to completing the annexation within two years, the county will immediately provide the trail funds for the walk and bike path phase due to be constructed this summer.

Council member Ben Cross was willing to approve the idea and made a motion to do so. When Mayor Linda Kadlec called for a voice vote, the response was muted. She followed by asking for a show of hands of those in favor. Cross and Barney Streeter favored the plan. Eric Ottmar, Gary Cook and David Grove opposed the move. Scott Yaeger, the county’s engineer, abstained.

The council moved on to a new subject and then picked up the Weber Road topic once more just before the end of the meeting.

“We have been asked to do something in a couple of years that we are going to be doing anyway,” Kadlec said of the annexation.

Kadlec believes the current farm ground along Weber Road will be developed in the near future and require access to city water and sewer services, which will naturally lead to the area’s annexation.

Cook said his concerns stem from whether or not the city will be able to follow through with the annexation in two years and have the funds available to cover the costs of maintaining that stretch of the road.

“I’m against just annexing a road,” Cross said as he supports being open to a broader annexation down the road. “I believe the Ag Discovery Center is going to happen there. When it does, it will need city water and sewer services.”

Grove eventually said he would agree to the concept as long as there was a written agreement developed between the county and they city that the council would be able to approve prior to making a concrete commitment to annex Weber Road.

He provided the motion and Cross added the second. The motion passed 4-1. Ottmar opposed the decision and Yaeger abstained.