10/27/2009
DAVID CLOUSTON
County residents have filed an appeal in Saline County District Court in an attempt to block a sand pit from opening near Ohio and Water Well roads in the event the county determines that the sand pit operator has qualified for a conditional-use permit.
In September, Saline County commissioners, led by John Reynolds and Jerry Fowler, who voted in favor of the project, set conditions that Concordia-based Alsop Sand Co. would have to comply with before a permit could be issued for the new sand pit and for the permit to remain in effect.
The main condition is negotiation of a road maintenance agreement between Alsop and the county to share the cost of paving two miles of Water Well Road between Holmes Road and Ohio Street, which is now gravel, to cut down on dust and accommodate the increased truck traffic to and from the site.
If the county and Alsop are unable to reach an agreement, the civil case filed Oct. 13 in Saline County District Court would become moot, as would an appeal in a prior civil case filed in 2007.
In the 2007 case, Alsop sued after it was turned down for a conditional-use permit by the former board of commissioners. That case is pending before the Kansas Court of Appeals.
“Both the older appeal and the current appeal are conditioned on the road agreement,” County Counselor Mike Montoya told county commissioners in an update prior to their weekly formal meeting.
The civil appeal filed this month asserts that the commission’s 2-1 decision Sept. 15 approving the conditional-use permit was “insufficient, unlawful and unreasonable.”
It also holds that commissioners failed to provide sufficient factual findings to provide a basis for their decision.


Read the rest of this story in Wednesday's Salina Journal.