All terrain and off-road utility vehicles will be able to operate on any secondary Muscatine County roads soon.
The proposed ordinance had a public hearing at the Muscatine County Supervisors meeting Monday, July 3.
Muscatine County Attorney Jim Barry said he was directed by the supervisors to remove any county roads prohibiting the use of these vehicles.
“I didn’t eliminate appendix A for roads that could be added,” Barry said. “I left that in there in the off chance in the future there is a decision by the board to take a road out or add a road back in to maintain some flexibility.”
All the ordinance does is fall in line with what the state code says, he added. The state gives each county the power to decide if there should be roads restricting the use of ATV and UTV’s.
“Given the lack of problems with the violations and enforcement I think the board decided that they just wanted to remove any restrictions,” Barry said.
Supervisor Jeff Sorensen said the supervisors were concerned about how removing road restrictions would impact road maintenance. However, county residents have been very respectful and have followed the rules when using these vehicles.
Larry Kent, of Muscatine, asked the supervisors for clarification about which roads in the city, county and state he could use his UTV on.
Barry told him any of the county’s secondary roads.
“There’s state roads,” Barry said. “There’s county roads and then there are city roads. All three of those jurisdictions can regulate traffic as they see fit. All we are talking about is county roads.”
Kent thanked everyone for the clarification about what roads the supervisors were discussing in the ordinance draft.
The supervisors closed the public hearing and approved the first reading of the ordinance.
“This won’t take effect until we go through the three readings for those who are interested,” Sorensen added.