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By LUTHER DORR, Mille Lacs County Times
Last spring in Bogus Brook Township two residents took exception to the noise created by a neighbor driving a modified off-road truck on adjacent property.
That led to months of work by the Mille Lacs County Land Services office on a proposed ordinance regulating motor sport vehicle tracks in certain districts of the county.
That led to a 5-0 vote by the county’s planning commission at its December meeting to recommend approval of the ordinance to the Mille Lacs County Board.
And that led to a lengthy discussion by the board at its Jan. 5 meeting about the proposal, with the result that the proposed ordinance, as has been the case with a number of proposed ordinances in recent months, was tabled.
Land Services Office Director Michele McPherson said Monday an amended version of the proposal will be in place by the board’s Tuesday, Jan. 26, meeting.
Early on in last week’s discussion commissioner Phil Peterson made a motion not to adopt the proposal but it died for lack of a second.
“It’s a steady drum beat,” Peterson said. “The government is intruding in our lives.”
Commissioner Jack Edmonds then made a motion to adopt the proposal but it also died for lack of a second.
“I might as well try one [motion],” countered commissioner Roger Tellinghuisen who made a motion for adoption with the standard of a minimum of 10 acres for a sport vehicle track deleted.
The motion was seconded by commissioner Dave Tellinghuisen but he later withdrew that second.
The discussion waged for many minutes after that before it was finally tabled and sent back for two language changes.
One will delete the 10-acre standard and the other will make it legal for friends visiting a property, with no money changing hands, to drive around a track.
McPherson, from the Land Services office, said one of the original complainants was “highly irate” because horses reacted to the noise and broke out of their fence.
She said there were other complaints later in the year.
The idea behind the 10-acre minimum parcel, with a minimum width of 660 feet, she said, was to make the area large enough so that people wouldn’t have an issue with putting a track on a small parcel.
“It was not our intent to make it onerous but to regulate somewhat,”she said at the board meeting.
McPherson said the county attorney’s opinion will be sought before the Jan. 26 meeting on whether or not existing tracks can be approved retroactively.
The proposed ordinance covers ATVs, motorcycles, snowmobiles and passenger vehicles/trucks modified in such a way to prohibit legal use on public roadways.
A track is defined as a course for the operation of motorized vehicles that operate in a repetitive, continuous manner or an area where motor sport vehicles, through such repetitive use, have altered or changed the natural contour of the landscape and created a clearly identifiable track.
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