Summit County councilmembers now say that, if the question was posed today, they would never create Service Area 8.
It’s a relic of a 1980s gas and oil boom: the county created it in 1982 to maintain Chalk Creek Road from Coalville to Wyoming for oil drilling near the state line. And it's costing nine households in the area thousands of dollars annually.
“We don't like to put ourselves out of business, but this might be the right time to do that,” Summit County Manager Shayne Scott said at the Nov. 20 meeting where councilmembers agreed with the staff recommendation to cut Service Area 8's budget.
Read more: Maintaining public road costs 9 North Summit households thousands
Residential property values continue to rise in Summit County. The value of oil fields in northern Summit County, which are determined by state tax officials, haven’t.
That’s increased the burden on those nine households, and councilmembers were appalled when they learned about the property taxes the residents pay last month.
“Why was just this small area assessed and not everybody who lives up and down Chalk Creek Road?” Councilmember Tonja Hanson asked Nov. 20. “Because everyone benefits from that road but only a small portion of the population pays for that.”
Hanson lives on Chalk Creek Road herself, doesn’t have pay the tax and thinks that’s unfair.
There are barriers to expanding the service area to include more taxpayers or to removing the nine households from it. The county can dissolve it entirely but not until next year’s budget season.
In the meantime, Public Works Director John Angell recommended reducing Service Area 8’s budget by about 30% to relieve the tax.
“After we see how that goes, we could possibly raise the municipal fund or try another third and see if we can absorb that,” he told the council.
The council signaled it's willing to cut the budget, especially if truck traffic, which causes the most wear and tear, has decreased since the 1980s.
“Maybe they're seeing tons of tankers still going down them every day?” Councilmember Chris Robinson said.
“Not tons, but some,” Hanson reported.
“There’s probably a few wells that have such low production that they have a storage tank at the wellhead, and once a month, they gather up what's in there and haul it out,” Robinson decided. “If there's any real volume they pipe it, if they can.”
The Summit County Council will officially decide whether to cut Service Area 8’s budget by a third next summer, when it finalizes 2025 tax rates.
That means the county doesn’t need to absorb the cost of Chalk Creek Road maintenance, currently over $700,000, into the 2025 budget it will adopt next month.
But councilmembers did discuss putting that cost into the county’s 2026 budget which funds most other county roads. That way, all citizens share the cost.
