I posted a few pictures from playing with the UC guys at The Oasis. Nice time.

Fence Update: Still just moving along, the Mayor stopped by once again today and was much more genial than usual. He had a copy of a letter from the city’s attorney to the City Council stating all the good reasons that the city should disregard our agreement and go ahead and do what they want to do. It starts out making it sound like the agreement he and the city forced us into accepting is nothing more than a few phrases thrown about and even those are pretty vague. Who really knows what they mean? Some choice quotes, emphasis mine:

“As it turns out, there is apparently a public prescriptive easement for a lane on the South side of the property.”

Seriously, if he thinks I don’t know what a prescriptive easement is by now…

“Further, the local water supply corporation has what appears to be an easement for a water line though the area on the South side of the property.”

Coincidentally we had just had the water guy out to tell us where we could put fence posts and he confirmed that the water line is on the other side of the street. But then again that is, as he says; “the area on the South side of the property.” …Or at least it appears to be.

“The City may have disclaimed interest in the remainder of the tract, however, it would not be acting for the public in general or the water supply corporation.

There’s a bit more stacking of conjectures upon the firm foundation of appearances of potential public good and then he concludes that a fence should be built, “however, it should not be extended into the prescriptive right-of-way easement of the public.”
But anyway. It turns out the sirens of the LH Bull.*?it were across the road videotaping my conversation with the Mayor. Weird. I guess they expected me to put him in a headlock or something.
I continue on with the firm expectation that they will, after all, comply with our agreement.

Fence update: Those guys keep coming by and talking at me. They really seem to be trying to get me to say that it’s alright and they really seem to be disregarding our agreement. The Mayor showed up over here towing two sheriff’s deputies yesterday and tried to talk my son into saying it was alright to put the fence wherever they wanted it. Being that most of the adults Robert knows are “The Man” I’m sure it wasn’t too traumatic for him, but I have to say that tactic makes me sick. Of course I can’t say that The Mayor knew I wasn’t home, but it would be trivially easy for him to know or find out in advance of a visit. This isn’t 1957, Governor Faubus! Not to sound like a nut, but when they want to talk to me they show up minutes after I arrive, when they need to react to something happening here they show up immediately. He’s been here several times, I can’t think that he thought I would suddenly become violent in response to this particular visit. He didn’t even have anything new to say.
In response to the Mayor’s latest visit I contracted a fine young man to construct the south fence to meet at the point to which the city agreed to build a fence. As he, in my absence, began to uproot the old fence someone called The Law again. It turned out to be my old friend Sgt. Maugham and he looked at our paperwork and warned Mrs. Bumper of tell-tale signs of malfeasance in fencing regarding the placement of cornerposts in spots not of our choosing. He gave Mrs. Bumper his card and offered to come and make the fence guys comply with the agreement. …I guess they do things like that in The WC.
I started a subgallery of fence stuff. I’ll try to throw up some captions Real Soon Now.

I went out and ran with Scott Cary’s Running Club today. It was a press conference announcing the APD/AFD running club thing and then we all got the opportunity to do the Runtex Workout (AKA Paul Carrozza Death March). Picture of the day is a fireman and I comparing shoes.

Fence Update: Councilman McLeod just came by again. His tactic today was to state that they were just going to put the fence in a certain place they chose, and then he waited for me to acquiesce. After a long pause wherein I didn’t answer that at all he said that they had even agreed that they would bring it out to a point a little further out. I said that when they stole my property they agreed to fence to here. I was afraid that it was going to be like one of those phone-slamming things wherein if, at any time during the conversation, I said anything remotely affirmative I would have a new telco, so I kept my few comments short and on point.
Now here’s the part where I almost choked him: He pulled out his little plat and offhandedly remarked that our front fence was a little on the public right of way^[1]. “Hmm, I guess the highway department handles that.”
Filthy.

[1] Our front fence is a little in the right of way because it goes around a huge tree. We could move the fence to the other side of the tree, but the tree would still be there…

This is not an April Fool’s story.
Short version of a long story like you get at the beginning of the second half of a two part televisor show:

1. In the course of converting our property back to a non-commercial residence we fenced off the driveway/road thingy that allowed people to get to where a building had been before the conversion. -Does that make sense?
2. Anyway, our neighbor goes to the City Council meeting every Monday night for months and begs them to sue us. The City Council, in a move really without precedent or reason, sues us for $20,000.00 and our driveway. -Well, the reason was, I suppose, to frighten us into begging them to just take it and let us live.
3. Finally, the city gets a lawyer who has done this sort of thing and condemns and buys from our mortgage company a bit of our property to open as a public roadway. -This is the way normal cities do this kind of thing all the time and there’s nothing I can really do about it. I contend that there’s no reason for them to waste more tax money on my driveway, but my voice goes unheard.
4. Our agreement with the city is that they bought .07 acre from us at a price they felt was reasonable and they gave us a letter relinquishing any claims they might have on the rest of our property and agreed to build a new fence along the line adjacent to the property they bought. The Mayor made a point that they would use the gates they were tearing down as part of the new fence, thus saving several dollars in fencing materials. In the meeting with the City’s attorney he made some notations on a plat that we would stake out where we wanted the gates to go and on that same plat he wrote out and made an arrow to the pin where the fence would end on the south end.

Okay, I think we’re caught up now, except for this little footnote: The pin that demarks the south end of the line between what they bought and what they left is nearly into the intersection of what used to be our driveway and the roadway behind our house and, needless to say, will not make travel on either of these two roads convenient.
The location of this pin, installed in the roadway during a survey made by the city, was no secret. I mentioned, when making my arguments against the city taking this action, that this wasn’t going to help anyone. I pointed out to the city’s attorney that this arrangement was going to make it very difficult for poor Miss Bryson to get into her driveway, but I was pooh-poohed at every turn.
I mentioned that the city cheaped out even though they got to pick their own low, low price and bought the bare minimum of our land. This is going to result in a very thin roadway and the only way we’re ever going to be able to get heavy equipment into the yard (for, perhaps, building a brand-new shop!) is to put the gates at the extreme south end of the new fence. So Mrs. Bumper takes a bit of red paint and delineates where the gates should go.
So, suddenly, a little paint on the ground where the city made us move our property line had caused a minor uproar. Councilman McLeod is, I guess, their liaison to us because we’ve known him a long time. He came to see us twice yesterday and the Mayor stopped by once. The Mayor didn’t stay very long, just long enough to say that the pin was in the wrong place and someone other than the surveyors must have placed it there. I opined that it might have been rogue stake fairies and he left in a huff. McLeod said that they really thought I would just want to move my property line in a little on my own, after all, that’s what good neighbors would do. I pointed out the 30 feet I had left when I got to decide where my property line was and accused his city council buddies of being ghouls for putting a fencepost right behind Poor Miss Bryson’s garage. “What are they trying to do, lock her in? That’s crazy! But I already told you guys that, I guess you know what you’re doing.”
I’m interested to see what they do next, but after they served papers on my wife and me, caused my poor saint-of-a-granny to lose precious sleep for a year and my dad to nearly go homicidal. I don’t really feel so full of gratitude that I really want to give them some more of my property just so they can look good. No matter how close it is to the election.