Hoops, You, JUMP!
My phone rings. “Hey, Brenda, it’s Troy. The power department guys are here and they want to know if you know if the power pole is on yours or the neighbor’s property.”
“Troy, I’m pretty sure it’s at the edge of both.”
“They say we need to pull maps and surveys and unearth the corner point to show where it is because if it’s on the neighbor’s property you’ll have to get an easement from them to run the power across their property.”
“No, wait, how would it go through their property? We’re planning the line from the pole, under MY driveway to MY house.”
“Their other proposal is to bring it in across the front yard from the other pole.”
“What?! Are you kidding?!?! We’d have to trench through the big old oak tree and kill it. That would cost me a ton more money and ruin that beautiful tree. No, they really wanted me to run it underground, but if they’re going to make this a hassle for me, forget it. Overhead!”
Troy hurried me off the phone. He had me on speakerphone and the guy from Light & Power was hearing it all. Personally, I’m glad he did.
Nothing became clear during the call but as I hung up it occurred to me…. electric utilities get their own signed easements for their poles. They should already have all necessary easements for running power to any of their customers from their lines.
In the afternoon I visited the light and power department to try to figure this out. I was helped by a smiley fellow. I explained my thinking about the utility easements. He agreed totally, but said the city uses the public right-of-ways for their easements but aren’t sure if they’ve sited them correctly. A pole very well could have been erroneously set within a neighbor’s yard and they want me to jump hoops to prove they actually did their work correctly and expect if they screwed up, I’ll jump through more hoops of getting an easement from my neighbor to allow their error to stand. And again I conclude: if I did my job like this, I’d be SO fired!
Leaving the building I met up with another contractor friend of mine. I told him the run around I just got. He advised me that no, I would not get an easement from my neighbor, but rather the City would relocate their illegally sited pole. I appreciate my friend for his no-nonsense perspective.
So part of this evening I spent measuring and attempting to guess where the corner marker should be. I raked away hoping it might be three or four inches down. A little later Troy joined me with a pick axe. Despite some pretty serious hacking away, he had no luck either. Later still, Gary showed up–he’s got a pretty good surveying bag of tricks. He verified the survey maps and then went out and took a shovel to it digging deeper, longer and wider. No luck either. Tomorrow Gary will return with a Shawnstadt detector (the thingy to locate the hidden metal corner rod.) Here’s hoping and praying that metal pole is actually there somewhere.
