Colby declines Clark County offer to review survey maps
The Colby city council decided to forgo an offer from Clark County to have the county review and approve Certified Survey Maps, or CSMs, done by the city prior to their submission. The process was seen as just an extra step in the process of approving any changes to zoning or maps and would unnecessarily take away power from the municipality to approve their own CSMs. Additionally, it was seen as the responsibility of the surveyors to seek out review from the county if they felt that their could be potential errors in their survey, not the city’s.
“If these surveyors are making errors and mistakes, they should be going to the county, having them reviewed by the county and paying the county before they even submit it to us for approval,” city clerk Connie Gurtner explained to the council. “Why should we hold up our CSM approval process by requiring the county to sign off also?”
In the letter from Clark County, the stated reason behind the offer was that the county had seen numerous errors in submissions from municipalities, saying that even minor errors or small typos can significantly impact the integrity of the maps.
It was discussed that the city of Colby has not seen these errors in their own survey maps, and even if it had, it should still be on the surveyor to obtain a review if they feel it necessary in order to avoid needing to submit a correction affidavit or an entirely new CSM.
Further complicating the matter is that Colby lies in both Clark and Marathon counties and a change in their current procedures with Clark County would likely need to be changed with Marathon County as well, in order to maintain uniform procedures.
Given that the city has not seen any issues with their survey maps and accepting the offer would add what was seen as unnecessary complications to the process, the council decided to decline the offer at this time.
The council also discussed the carryover funds from 2022-23 at their meeting last Tuesday. During the discussion, the balances of certain designated funds were questioned, such as money designated for offstreet parking. Some members of the council wondered why money was being budgeted for certain projects when funds that were designated for such purposes were not being used.
The explanation was that these designated funds are often used for unexpected charges or projects that are difficult to budget for. An example of a recent use of these funds was the painting of the fire hall last year. Ultimately, no action to move or use the funds was taken at that time.
