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Steamboat Springs — It's a calculated gamble, but the Routt County Board of Commissioners should move forward with a plan to spend almost $1 million of its cash reserves to acquire the rights of way needed for Routt County Road 14 improvements. Delaying the acquisition process would hurt the county's chances of securing a $20 million federal grant for the high-priority road project.

Routt County simply doesn't have the money needed to fix a five-mile section of C.R. 14 that begins at its northern intersection with Colorado Highway 131. Two years ago, voters turned down a property tax increase that would have raised $3.3 million a year for capital projects, including C.R. 14 over Yellow Jacket Pass. The ballot question's failure can be attributed, at least in part, to the county's failure to put a sunset on the tax.

Meanwhile, the county's financial situation - and the condition of C.R. 14 - continues to deteriorate. The commissioners instituted 10 percent pay cuts countywide earlier this spring, following with furloughs that reduced employees' hours by an identical percentage. The commissioners made the pay cuts as part of an effort to reduce a $4.9 million deficit for 2009, and they're attempting to use as little cash reserves as possible because of fears the economic recession will persist for several years.

C.R. 14 has deteriorated to the extent that Routt County Road and Bridge Department Director Paul Draper said normal maintenance procedures aren't possible. About 2,800 cars a day travel on that section of C.R. 14.

We're sympathetic to the difficult position the C.R. 14 proposal puts the commissioners in. Spending reserves to acquire land needed for a road improvement project almost certainly will hurt the morale of county employees, who could interpret such a move as evidence their own salaries weren't considered as important as a road project.

But not spending the $1 million to acquire the land through a federally mandated process jeopardizes any shot the county has at securing the $20 million grant. Of the $1 million, about $675,000 would go toward the actual acquisition of land needed to straighten and re-grade C.R. 14. The remaining $300,000 is the cost associated with following a specific federal process to acquire the rights of way from landowners. If the county doesn't follow the federal process, it isn't eligible for the federal grant.

In actuality, the county's gamble is the $300,000 cost for following the federal process, not the estimated $675,000 needed to purchase the rights of way. C.R. 14 is the county's No. 1 priority for the Road and Bridge Department, and those rights of way will have to be purchased eventually. Plus, there might not be a better time than now to purchase land at a reasonable price.

Timing also is an important factor in the county's decision to move forward with the expenditure. Delaying the process or asking for grant funds to cover the acquisition of the rights of way as well as the road project itself not only makes the grant submittal less competitive, but it also jeopardizes whether the county could complete the project in the required two years.

Grant recipients will be announced in February 2010, and awarded projects must be completed by February 2012. Unless the county immediately begins the rights of way acquisition process, there's little chance for any substantial work to be completed in the summer of 2010, leaving only the summer of 2011 for the project.

The commissioners will revisit the issue this week, and we urge them to move ahead with purchasing the rights of way from area landowners. Risking $300,000 to follow federal guidelines not only makes the county eligible for potential grant funding, but it gives us a shot at funding a crucial road project with stimulus dollars. Simply put, the county may never again have an opportunity to secure such significant federal funding for a much-needed local project.