The Vilas County highway committee is being asked if county trunk highways now open for ATV- UTV should be allowed year around operation rather than the current December 1 closing.
The county Forestry committee adopoted a motion to forward this requst to the county highway committee after discussion on late starts for opening snowmobile trails.
Landover ATV Club spoksperson Roger Flaherty said “in some years we have little or no snow when we close Dec 1 and we don't know if we'll have good snow conditions to open snowmobile trails for the Christmas season” and felt ATV's could fill the gap.
County board chairman Ron De Bruyne favored year around operation on county highways indicating he talked with highway commissioner Nick Scholtes and “he has no problem with them open in winter.” Recreation administrator Dale Mayo wanted to hold off making any decision. “We have towns come to us with requests for ATV's on county highways; the county does not force ATV's on towns that don't want them,” Mayo said. That brought an immediate reaction from board chairman DeBruyne who pointed out “we (the county) don't have a say on town roads open to ATV's so why should the towns have a say on county roads?”
The committee adopted a motion to have the highway committee look into changing the ordinance to allow year around ATV-UTV travel on county highways where they currently are allowed.
