A.
Call to
Order and Roll Call
The meeting was called
to order at
6:30 p.m.
by Chairperson Petersdorf. Patty
Pennel called the Roll.
Present:
Mr. Petersdorf, Bill Connell, David Persons, George McKenzie,
Jo Owen, Keith Herring, Linda Lauck, Lee Riechel and Patty Pennel were
present.
B.
Approval of Minutes –
October 20, 2008
Action
There are a couple of corrections to be made. Bob Pertersdorf's
last name is repeated a couple of times. Bill Connell (two L's in last
name) Lee Riechel is a Planning Chair, not a Road Commissioner. He is
a Planning Commission Liaison.
Commissioner Jo wanted to comment on the section that Darrell
Eastman talked about the Tsiltcoos Lake Club Plat. Also, she disagreed
with the sentence that says "Someone from
South
Shore
wanted to buy the road." She has the letter that
South
Shore
wrote on March of 05, and there should be a copy, because a copy came
to Mayor, Rob Ward. The letter says that we were aware that this was
going into delinquency, "should this sequence of events come to
pass, the South Shore Homeowners
Association would like to explore the possibility of acquiring
ownership of the strip, which is known as South Cove Drive, between
Clearlake and our subdivision." It doesn't say anything about
purchasing the Road, it just says that if it goes on the auction, we
would be interested. Chair Petersdorf made the suggestion that if
Commissioner Jo could give Secretary Patty a copy and we will attach
it to the minutes, so then it will always be part of the minutes.
Commission Jo wanted to make sure that 20 years from now, someone that
pulls these minutes will know that she believes the facts are not
correct. Chair Petersdorf said that if we attach her letter that
explains what she feels are the real facts and will always be on
record.
(Letter
dated,
March 26, 2005
to Jeff Turk, Property Manager regarding the property owned by the
Tsiltcoos
Lake
Club Plat that serves as access to the owners of thirty lots in the
South
Shore
Homeowners Association area, is attached.)
Action
Commissioner Linda made a motion to approve the
October 20th 2008
minutes with changes as
addressed. Commissioner Bill seconded the motion. Motion unanimously
carried.
C.
Citizen Input
None
D.
Correspondence
E.
Unfinished/Old Business
a.
Dunes
City
addresses with phone numbers and some
email addresses
b. Chair Petersdorf began the discussion on
Myrtlewood Drive
issues. At last month's Road meeting
we had Judy Bedsole (not in attendance at today's meeting) talk about
her concerns with Myrtlewood and we were hoping she would be here
tonight, so we could further the discussion and provide some answers
to Judy. She asked a couple of questions, (1) She wanted to know why
she was paying taxes on an easement and at this time Chair Petersdorf
introduced Joe Lang. Joe has the most knowledge about Myrtlewood, they
owned all that land at one time.
Joe
will give us some history about
Myrtlewood Lane
and there will be no time limit on
Joe's speech. Chair Petersdorf hadn't realized until tonight just how
many residents are opposed to closing
Myrtlewood Drive
. When Judy Bedsole purchased the
property the easement information was in her title search and she was
aware of the fact that there was a 10 foot easement down through that
road. Judy Bedsole's water lines are on the wrong easement. They are
in fact on another person's property and not on her property. These
other people are paying taxes on their property with Judy's water
lines on it. Chair Petersdorf said that this is quite a mess and a big
can of worms.
Joseph
Lane
, 4817 Laguna
I
have been asked by my neighbors to come down here and talk to you
tonight about Myrtlewood. Some of them are out of the State right now,
so they couldn't make it here, but they will be at the City Council
Meeting. Myrtlewood has been a roadway since 1951, 57 years ago. It
became a roadway through the easement process when local property
owners, John Wray, Goldie Hill and EA Jackson sold a 10 foot easement
off each property to Mike Fisher, who was the original owners of Fish
Mill Lodge and my Grandfather,
S. A. Lane
and to all property owners in the
approximate area. The easement covered block 29, 7, 8, 11, 12 and 13.
Mike Fisher and my family built the road from the Tee from
Cherry St. and east on
Summit
over and across the 10ft. easements
granted from each property owner, which resulted in a 20 ft. wide
easement for that area. Which is now called Myrtlewood. The purpose of
the roadway easement was to give access to Laguna. It was a cheaper
and easier route than clearing the brush and timber off of Maple and
the west end of Laguna and the upper part of
Summit
. In those days it was all timber
including all the lots that we own now, 23, 24 33, those are all
timber. Also, keep in mind
that in the 50's this was still controlled by the county, which if you
were going to do it by the book, it was a long way to go to Eugene to
get permission to run it through those roads, so we went across
property. In June of 1963,
Dunes
City
became a City. In the late 60's and
early 70's when the city started to get some road money, they needed
access to
Laguna Road
, which is a plated street in 1913 plat
of
Westlake
. The cheapest and quickest route was
through Myrtlewood, rather than have the City spend money opening up
Maple St.
and the upper part of Laguna. The City
Council and the Road Committee chose to use Myrtlewood as an access
road to Laguna, which made good sense in those days. In doing this the
City agreed to maintain Myrtlewood, even though it was an easement,
because that was the cities only access to Laguna. It was a cheap way
to go and it was already graveled, it just needed oil. Also, remember
upper Laguna and Maple was not opened or paved until 1994. Johnson
Rocks contract is in the packet and shows when the last 100 feet of
Laguna was opened and when Maple and the last upper part of Laguna
were paved, the lower part was paved back in the 60's. That's when
they would lay oil and gravel over it and the cars that traveled over
the road basically pushed it in and later they started to use asphalt.
Since then every time the City has worked on Laguna they also do
maintenance of Myrtlewood and put oil and gravel and asphalt on it.
This was done in the late 60's, 70's and in 1983 and the last paving
job was done by Johnson Rock in 1994.
In the 60's and 70's the Riesenhuber, Martin Christenson and
Bernie LeForge were members of the Council and were involved. In 1994
Ken Hays was Road Commissioner and Keith Watson was Road Inspector. In
addition to the work that was done, in the winter of 2007, when 2 inch
rock was put on Myrtlewood and Laguna to control storm water runoff.
There isn't much on Myrtlewood, about 25 feet by 2 feet in width.
Basically the rock was put on there because Vanderhoffs water was
running down and washing out his property.
Myrtlewood is an easement, which became public in the 60's and
a quick definition of an easement (and
I am not a attorney) it's basically a right that one party has to
use another parties property in a specific manner. It's the same
rights Fish Mill Lodge has to use five other people's property to put
their water line on. The land owner still owns the property and he or
she still has a deed of record and still must pay taxes on that
easement property. When they go to sell that property and say it's 100
by 100, that property is sold by 100 by 100, even though it has an 10
foot easement on it. It's not sold by 90 by 100, that's not the way
it's sold. So they would get the value back on the end of it as the
property values rise, even though they are paying taxes on the roadway
that the property owners are not using for their house.
In
conclusion to this, let me say that we feel that Myrtlewood needs to
stay open, so that the fire trucks, ambulances and trailer houses and
motor homes can get off of Laguna without backing up the hill to
Maple. If Myrtlewood is ever closed; and we hope that it never will
be, Laguna would be a dead end street with no turnaround for large
trucks. Also, since the City has been doing maintenance on Myrtlewood
anywhere from 25 to 40 plus years; we feel that they have a
responsibility to continue that maintenance. It can only benefit the
City to have a well maintained road. If a fire gets in the NRA's
timber up there, which is right in back of Laguna, or in the timber
off of Maple Street, residents up there would need another access to
get out and need a couple of good solid roads to get fire trucks in
there. Once you get a forest fire going, you would have a real
problem. Also, keep in mind, that if people want to get an easement
off of their tax rolls, they can donate the 10 foot by 100 to the
City. It's a very simple and easy way of getting it off the tax rolls.
Also, I would like you to keep in mind that these have been recorded
since 1951 and they are all on record. I have pulled them up two or
three times over there (Eugene) and any title search that is done by
any property owner or Title Company should show that there is
easements on that property. If they don't I would assume that they
would have a problem with the Title Company or with the previous owner
for not disclosing it and not with the City or the people that use it.
Commissioner
Jo had a question about Myrtlewood for Joe and wanted to know when
Judy Bedsole said anything at the last meeting about closing
Myrtlewood? One of Judy's questions was why did she have to pay taxes
on the easement, since she felt that it was a private street and she
owned it. Commissioner Joe
said that Judy owns the property underneath the paved street.
Commissioner Joe stated that it seemed to her that the City, years
ago, has gone in and done work on it and now it's a street.
Joe Lane
said yes, they have done work on it
and he assumed they should accept it as a street, but he didn't know
what you had in the records. Commissioner Jo stated that we have it on
our
Dune
City
road inventory log along with a few
others that she considers private streets. This is what Judy was
questioning in her allotted three minutes, and we were to be
discussing it tonight. That's what we promised her and that's what we
are doing. Myrtlewood is listed on our City streets and Judy wanted to
know why? Commissioner Jo asked if the City owns that land or not. The
answer was, "No" the City does not own the land.
Commissioner Jo stated that to her, this was a private street, with an
easement going over it. Chair Petersdorf stated that in 1964 there was
a letter written to Bob Reed (it's in the records someplace), who was
the Chairperson of the Roads at that time, when the State gave
Dunes
City
$5,000 to start our road program. They
said that at anytime you expend money on a private street, you assume
the responsibility of that street. It was a case law case at that
time. Commissioner Jo wants to see that letter.
Chair Petersdorf said that this started way back in 1963, way
before he was involved in the Road Commission, so don't blame him for
this one. Commissioner Jo
said that she wasn't blaming anyone, but what you did in 1964 and what
you can do today are two different things. Chair Petersdorf said that
what you did in 1964 trumps what we can do today. If that road was
done in 1964, then it can be legal even though you couldn't do it
today. We do have streets
today, like Buckskin Bob where we took 20 feet from their property and
they were going to sue the City and found out that Ron Mayer, city
attorney, said that they had been using that for 40 some odd years and
so it was a street and the courts ruled on that, so they had to drop
the suit. Huckleberry was another one of those streets, where we went
in a repaired that road where there were places that were 50 or 60
feet on the people's property back in those days. Lee Riechel stated
that it would be in the cities best interest to find the original
easements, because if the easement is for use of
Dunes
City
as a road, then it would be a public
road and when it was vacated it would revert to the property owners.
In the meantime it would continue on as a
City Street
per the wording on the easement. Chair
Petersdorf stated that this all should be on record.
He said we will have someone do research on that document.
Commissioner Jo had a couple of letters with her and one of the
letters was about deeding the easement over to the City and then on
the other letter the residents didn't feel at this time that they
should deed over the easement to the City, because they were afraid
about their waterline. Chair Petersdorf said that it's kind of a mess
and Commissioner Jo agreed. Chair Petersdorf said not to forget that
this all happened back in 1903 when the County was down here and
helped to create this mess.
Commissioner
Jo wanted to know why this was all being brought up now. Why do the
residents think that Myrtlewood is going to be closed? She is
inquiring because there is a petition and letters of about 30
residents that has been signed wanting Myrtlewood to remain open.
Commissioner Jo wanted to know who wants to close it. Chair Petersdorf
said that Judy owns it and wants to close it.
Joe Lane
said that the petition and letters we
received today was to let the City know how the people feel about
Myrtlewood. They believe it should be kept open and they believe that
the City has been maintaining it since they went in and started
working on Laguna that the City should continue to maintain it. It's
basically to show the City what the feeling is in the neighborhood and
the petition and letters are about 98% of the people and the only
reason their wasn't more is because they are not here right now.
Commissioner Jo said that she wasn't aware that it was Judy's
intention to close Myrtlewood. She only thought there was a rumor
about closing it. Commissioner
Jo said that Judy was questioning why it was on the City Street List,
when she was paying taxes on it and she thought it was a private
street with an easement over the top. Commissioner Jo said that she
did not hear Judy Bedsole say she wanted to close it.
Joe Lane
said that he has not talked to Judy
face to face and that this was the impression he got about
Myrtlewood Lane
. Commissioner
Jo wanted to know why we didn't have some better communication in this
City. Commissioner Linda wondered why Judy didn't come to tonight's
meeting as the Road Commission told her that we would have an answer
to her question at tonight's meeting.
Then we could have asked her these questions tonight instead of
going round and round.
Rod Walhorn, 4829 Laguna
I'm
Don and Susan Durland's adopted son. They wanted me to read this
letter. I don't have my glasses and need someone to read this please.
They are in
Texas
right now and wanted me to come on
their behalf. Patty
Pennel, Road Secretary will read the letter as follows:" Please
be advised that Suzanne and Don Durland have property on the corner
Myrtlewood and
Laguna Lane
and oppose any attempt by Fish Mill
Lodge to close the one block section of Myrtlewood. This section of
Myrtlewood completes a one block loop used by the entire neighborhood
since 1951. Access to eight properties is made easier and safer. Four
properties front on Myrtlewood and only one of them is owned by Fish
Mill Lodge and has no direct access to their business portion. Our
experience has been that Fish Mill Lodge has selfish and possibly
devious agendas. Fish Mill has evidenced little concern for the
Westlake
community and constructive or positive
relations with any of our immediate neighbors. Fish Mill has a long
history of cantankerous and self serving actions. Thank you for
listening to our point of view. Sincerely, Suzanne and Don
Durland"
Rod
said he was listening and something was brought up why no one has
talked to the people from Fish Mill and first hand he knows why Don
and Susan will not talk to them. That is because Judy Bedsole's son's
have threatened them with bodily injury and I just heard about it two
months after the fact. So, they are a little couple and don't want any
confrontations and sure don't want to get hurt in anyway, so they
aren't going to confront them. They have to go legally, that's part of
the reason why they sent this letter for the council. Rod stopped and
talked to the Fire Department and asked them how they felt about the
road being closed. They said if there was ever a fire, they would hope
it would be a small one, because they could not bring in their big
trucks and move around if Myrtlewood were closed.
He talked to the garbage service this morning and they said
that if the road was closed it would be a real bad situation for him
and he would have to go into the neighbors' property just to turn
around in order to pick up the garbage. Apparently the School District
would have to send smaller buses, because there would be no way they
could get their regular sized buses to fit and if more people move
into that area with kids, they would open it up as a bus route, but
they wouldn't be able to do that and bring in a bigger bus.
His experience is that he used to fight fires in
California
and if there isn't a safe place for
fire trucks, they aren't going to come down there. If there was a fire
on that backside, it would pretty much be gone. A lot of the people
back there are older and if they have heart problems and stuff. The
emergency vehicles have got to be able to respond quickly and with any
delays on the uphill side would stop them. That's all Rod had to say.
He just wanted to address the concerns why no one has gotten first
hand information from Fish Mill Lodge, it's because they have been
threatened and they aren't going to confront anyone.
Jim
Epple,
83939 View Terrance Drive
I
am here to represent Bonnie and Adrian Vanderhauf, their property
fronts on Myrtlewood. Everything has been already said except that
they are caught in the situation when they bought the property
(obviously Myrtlewood existed) , they just remodeled and re-paved and
restructured their driveway to deal with the drainage problem from
above at considerable expense to them, based on the fact that
Myrtlewood was as it is today. It seems to him to be unfair in the
light of those changes and the fact that they went to considerable
expense to deal with the drainage from up above and now someone wants
to take the road out. He said "that is just ridiculous".
Thank you.
Chairperson
Petersdorf at this time closed the public portion of the meeting and
opened it up to those Road Commissioners so they could make any
comments at this time. The only comment that Chair Petersdorf wished
to make at this time, is that when we get all done tonight, he would
like to have a motion made that we can address this in more detail and
notify all the property owners up there that we will make a
recommendation one way or the other to the City Council on what we
want to do with Myrtlewood, or we can table it tonight and let the new
administration take over the first of the year.
Commissioner Bill made a motion that the Road Commission
recommend to the City Council that Myrtlewood be maintained as a city
street, so large vehicles from Fish Mill Lodge can use it to get out
of that place and eliminates a dead end road, which has always been
the Cities policy and give access to the homeowners, emergency and
school bus access and should be maintained as a City street.
Chair Petersdorf suggested that we include the letter that was
signed by the home owners for support of this motion. Commissioner
George seconded the motion. Chairperson
Petersdorf condensed the motion to say "there has been a motion
made by Bill and seconded by George to go ahead to make a
recommendation to the City Council that Myrtlewood stay open with the
attached letters. At this time we will call for a discussion.
Commissioner Jo wanted to know if at some point we will run this by
our attorney. Dave said that the City Council will most likely do just
that. Commissioner Jo didn't feel as if she were qualified to say
whether the street should stay opened or closed. She agreed that we
should turn this issue over to the City Council.
Commissioner
Linda Lauck wanted to say that she feels the street should stay open,
since it says in the Master Road Plan, that we are responsible for the
safety of our citizens and we have older people up there and it's been
pointed out how important it is to get emergency vehicles up there. We
have at least 20 people or more that want that road opened and one
person that wants the road closed.
I don't see why there should be any question to it staying
open. It is what it is and
it is a grave safety issue if it's closed and Judy Bedsole knew there
was an easement there when she purchased Fish Mill Lodge.
There was a brief discussion on whether or not the Postal
trucks would be able to deliver mail if the road was closed.
Commissioner
Linda wanted to make sure that a copy of the minutes is sent to Judy
Bedsole, since she was not at tonight's meeting. Patty will send her a
copy of the minutes.
Chairperson
Petersdorf wanted to be sure everyone realized that he was not
involved in the Road Department back in 1989 when a lot of this was
going on. Ken Hays was the Chairperson at the time.
The
motion on giving this to the City Council was unanimously carried.
Chairperson
Petersdorf suggested that if the Mayor and Road Secretary Patty decide
to send out letters to all concerned citizens on the decision for
Myrtlewood that this can be done before or after the new
administration takes control. He
will leave it up the Mayor at this point.
New Business
No New Business
G.
Unscheduled Items Not Listed on Agenda
No unscheduled items at this time
H.
Reports
Keith
Herring Report
10/27
and 10/29 Ran Roads
11/3
Ran Roads and put up a Stop sign on
Wright Rd
and
Woahink Drive
11/5
Cut limbs on
Huckaberry Lane
11/7
Ran Roads and put up Woodland Way St. Sign
11/10
Ran Roads
11/14
Ran Roads and delivered Road Commission Packets
11/17
Ran Roads
Kieth
asked Chair Petersdorf what he wanted the Commission to do with the
old trailer parked down off of Buckskin Bob on that easement? Chair
Petersdorf said that the City Council had a discussion on the trailer
and if the trailer belongs to Dave Peterson, the City Council was
going to write him a letter asking him what he is going to do with
trailer. This issue doesn't have anything to do with Roads as it's on
private property, technically. It's a waterline easement that runs all
the way down to the lake. Chair Petersdorf suggested to Keith that he
needs to come to the office and get the address and go knock on the
owners door and ask him about the trailer.
Keith had another question on the culvert on
Russel and wanted to know if we need to go and clean it out.
Chairperson Petersdorf asked him if the water is running across the
road. Keith wasn't sure and Chair Petersdorf said that the reason that
culvert was put in there was because the upland people cut that whole
hillside down to where there was no grass or anything on it. All that
mud and water was going across the road into the lot that has a log
cabin being built on it right now. But, if that grass and vegetation
has grown back, then it is probably holding that water from going
across the street, then we don't need the culvert in there anymore.
Chair Petersdorf said that he went down there and the culvert is all
plugged up and should probably be left that way so when it rains, that
water will go right down into the property that the house is being
built. Chair Petersdorf suggested that Keith go take a look at the
road when it's raining to make sure the water is not crossing the
street. If the water is crossing the street, then we will have to take
action.
Commissioner Linda asked Keith if Summerbell ever
got stripped. Kieth said no it hasn't, nor has Huckleberry. Chair
Petersdorf suggested that we get a list together of the streets that
need to be stripped and have them all done at one time. It will cost a
lot less to do it all at once rather than piece mill it. Chair
Petersdorf said that Summerbell should have been stripped by the
contractor, since we already paid for him to do the stripping. Keith
and Patty need to figure out who was suppose to do the stripping and
write them a letter and have them strip the streets. One is Grant and
one is Rayus on Cloud Nine and maybe Randy Johnson. We should put it
in a letter form and make a recommendation to have the letter sent to
the City Council. It was suggested that the letter state that if they
don't finish the work and stripping, then the City will do it at our
expense and bill them. Chair Petersdorf said that this has worked in
the past.
Keith Herring will be out of town from November
20th until Tuesday December 2nd.
And he will be gone a week over Christmas.
Motion was made to approve the Road Inspector
Report. Unanimously approved and carried.
Patty
Pennel, Road Secretary
Request to take a day
off for travel on Thursday, December 4th
Bill
Connell, Road Commissioner
Commissioner Bill asked Patty to request that the
City Recorder provide this month's Financial Statement. Patty wanted
to know where the City Recorder could get the information on where the
State states how to spend the Road money. Bill said that it is in the
State of
Oregon Constitution
and Patty could get it online for Amy. Chair Petersdorf said that
Norman Martin, who was at the last City Council meeting had with him
that section of the State Constitution, but couldn't get copies made
for the Council members. Commissioner
Linda asked if Patty would put the copy in the
next Road
Commission Meeting packet. Patty said she would add it to the packet.
Linda
Lauck, Road Commissioner
No Report
Jo Owen
Comments on the revisions to the permits. She
will give them to Patty at later time.
Dave
Persons, Road Commissioner
Nothing
to Report
Lee
Riechel, Planning Liaison to Road
Commission
We are combining the November and December
meeting to one meeting on December 4th.
George McKenzie, Road Commissioner
No Report
Mr.
Petersdorf Petersdorf, Road Chairperson
No Report except that as far as the election
goes, the final count will be office on November 24th.
I.
Adjournment
Meeting was adjourned at
7:35 PM
THE NEXT REGULARLY SCHEDULED ROAD COMMISSION
MEETING WILL BEGIN AT
6:30 P.M
,
MONDAY DECEMBER 15th, 2008
____________________________
____________________________
Mr.
Petersdorf Petersdorf, Chair
Patty Pennel, Road Secretary