Montezuma County commissioners claim a locked gate across County Road Y is illegal, and are working toward reopening the road.

The road crosses private land and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument southwest of Pleasant View.

A landowner has been locking a gate where the road enters a private property inholding within the monument, said county road supervisor Rob Englehart.

A locked gate across a green-signed county road is not allowed, said county attorney John Baxter.

Green-signed roads on the county map are public and cannot be blocked, he said. Red-signed roads are private and can be gated.

The landowner told the county he is allowed to lock the gate based on a 2005 agreement with the Bureau of Land Management that allows BLM access.

But Baxter believes any agreement for a locked gate across a green-signed county road is not valid.

“I let him know this is a county road, and we are asking that you make sure it always remains open or we may have to remove it,” Baxter said.

County officials said Road Y has been a public road since the 1950s.

The gate has been an issue for a few years, Englehart said. It had been left open or unlocked for a while, but recently it has been closed and locked, he said.

In 2018, a party touring the monument by vehicle from the south were relying on the road to exit the area, Englehart said. They came across the locked gate at Road Y and were forced to turn around.

Commissioners Jim Candelaria, Joel Stevenson and Kent Lindsay directed Baxter and Englehart to contact the landowner and request that he immediately open the gate and leave it open.

They also set a timeline of 30 days for the landowner to remove the gate.

The owner of the property is listed as Cortez LLC, A California Limited, according to the Montezuma County Assessor’s Office.

jmimiaga@the-journal.