Almost two years after Kane County officials removed 31 signs delineating federally mandated trails, roads and travel restrictions on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the County Commission has put up signs on some roads that cut across federal land - signifying they are open to motorized use.

The move is the latest attempt by the southern Utah county to assert what it believes is its right to control local roads.

The issue of who has control of the roads on federal land under Revised Statute 2477 has been slogging its way through the courts for the past 25 years, but apparently Kane County is not waiting for the courts to decide. County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw said Tuesday the county is simply exercising its property rights.

"The BLM lacks authority over roads in the county without due process of law," he said.

Habbeshaw, along with Sheriff LaMont Smith and county Road Supervisor Lou Platt, removed the signs from the monument in August 2003. That action spurred an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office. Federal prosecutors are still reviewing the case.

"We believe it is a civil and not a criminal matter," Habbeshaw said, adding that the decision to put up the signs has the support of the county's two other commissioners, Ray Spencer and Dan Hulet.

Habbeshaw denies that the decision is linked to a hearing held last Friday in Salt Lake City where the State of Utah asked the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a district judge's ruling in favor of the federal government on the RS2477 issue.

A ruling on Friday's hearing could take several weeks.

"We [commissioners] decided we needed to start managing our roads instead of being afraid to act like they are our roads," Habbeshaw declared.

He did not know how many signs will be needed, but said their are more than 1,000 county roads and each will need a minimum of two signs.

When the first series of signs are in place, between Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park and U.S. Highway 89, Habbeshaw said the county will review the placements with the Bureau of Land Management Kanab field office to see if any errors were made. Such errors would include marking private or state school trust lands wrongly.

An official county transportation map, which includes roads the county plans to post, has not been created yet. Habbeshaw said posting the signs will proceed, including on the monument, during review discussions with the BLM.

Rex L. Smart, the manager of the BLM Field Office in Kanab, said the signs have been up for several weeks though none are on roads through wilderness-study areas. He said he does not know if the actions are illegal. "We're talking to the state [BLM] office in Salt Lake City."

Posting the signs comes as the Kanab BLM office begins updating a Resource Management Plan that includes 600,000 acres of nonmonument BLM lands in Kane and most of Garfield counties. That plan will take at least three years.

Smart said he was concerned about the county's timing. "They are telling people it's OK to ride on roads we might have to close later."

At BLM offices in Salt Lake City, spokesman Don Banks said his office had just heard of the county's actions and is waiting to receive more details.

"It's disappointing," Banks said. "We've had a standing request, expressing our desire to help them with a map identifying [off-highway vehicle] trails. For them to act unilaterally seems more confrontational than collaborative."

mhavnes@sltrib.com