Emminent Domain, Adverse Use, easements, etc.

With the power company, there was no communication problem from my end. I've got fifty acres up on a steep mountain top and the power company owns a fifty-foot width of property cutting through it. Their high-lines ran through it in the center of the fifty feet. Their land runs to a town-highway, but it's real steep. When the lines were first put in, in the 40s, that managed to do it all using their own land for getting in and out - and probably did the work in the summer. Now, they wanted EASY access and wanted to do the work in the winter - which is nuts! Also, they didn't want to put the new highlines back in the middle of their own land - because they'd have to remove the old ones first to do that. So, they decided it would be easier to put all the new poles and lines on my land, get it all ready to energize, and then do the change-over in one day. Once done, they would tear the old stuff down, their original 50 foot width of land would be unused, and they'd now be using my land - forever. Communication on their part was poor mainly because they don't do any of their own work. The hired Asplundh to take down trees and build roads, the French-Canadian outfit to put in the new highlines, and even hired a separate company to negotiate new right-of-ways. Seems nobody knew what was going on outside the scope of their own particular job and it was a mess.
With the road-building - I walked the property with their "engineers", marked trees, and made my self available. They were supposed to notify me when road-work started, and I would re-walk the site and advise whoever was actually doing the work. Never happened. They showed up, cut in a new road, never called or asked me, and missed by a couple of hundred feet in certain areas. They then put a locked gate on the access with their own keys (didn't give me keys to access my own property). So - as I said before - I cut off their lock, put on my own, and chained some of their equipment to my tractor (that was on my land, not their's). They tried to bully me, it did not work. The reality is - the individual contractors wanted to be helpful - but they only knew what they were told by the power company. I confronted the French Canadian guys when I found their machine upside down along the side of my field - with over twenty trees knocked down where it came it. The one guy I found that spoke english told me he didn't even know it was private property - he said the power company told him they owned it. THAT IS when I threw them out and chained up their equipment. They are gone now (until next time), I got paid some money for damages, but they never corrected the road. I've got another 100 acres with power company right-of-ways zig-zagging all over it - and they're going to have a battle next time they come to work on any of it for any reason.
On the subject of owning property, sometimes I think it's not worth it. I've had my own sugar-woods, firewood and woodlots for years - but with what I pay in taxes now - I could go out and buy my firewood and maple syrup a lot cheaper than what I pay in taxes. And the good log lots with timber value get taxed very high. The town I live in tried to take some of my property last year by emminent domain - but so far I've held them off. Sad thing is - with the "quick take" means of emminent domain, they can do it anytime as long as nobody shows up at a public meeting to vote it down. And, there is no legal recourse if it is proved what they did is wrong! Right now, the law states - if your land is taken by emminent domain, and you prove later the taking was wrong and NOT justified, you can NOT get your property back - just some additional compensation if you're lucky.
Now, another related experience. I own a large tract of wetland and forest land up north (Jefferson County, Tug Hill, NY). It has been our own - what we regard as - private wildlife refuge. Very remote, frogs, beaver, deer, ducks, etc. all over the place. Ten years ago this was the most remote place in New York State - and it also gets the most snowfall in the contiguous 48 states because of lake-effect snow from Lake Ontario. It's a four-hour drive so I only get up there once or twice a year. In the past few years, a logger cut a road right through the middle of our property in order to log someone else's lot. We had to get the state police involved. Now, with the road in place, people are treating it like a public highway and trying to get the town to maintain it. And, snowmobiles and ATVs are using it. It's NUTS! We've been sending out "permission letters" to all the tresspassers we know of. We are giving permission so no one can claim "adverse use" and get a judge to grant them permanent access. Our only other option is to gate it - but since we are not there to watch it - it's likely the gate will be torn down as soon as we leave. I already tried replanting trees in the new road - and they were all gone the next time we went there.
So what is the answer? Give up, sell all this sh*t, and get an apartment somewhere? People need to wake up, and realize - they must stand up for other people when they see their property rights being trashed - or their own land will be next.
When I went to a town meeting trying to stop the emminent domain where I live - a neighbor spoke up. I don't know this guy, he's a newly arrived city person who lives 2 miles from me - but he is my closest "neighbor." He said, publically, " I don't give a damn what you do to this other guy (meaning me), but you're not gonna' take my land." THAT is the mentality that will lead to everyone losing their rights.

The US Supreme Court can review cases at anyti,e in the future if they are brought back into the US Supreme Court, but generally are reluctant to do so. And, the US Supreme Court had the option and opportunity to re-visit the exact case that brought us this whole mess a couple of weeks after their initial ruling, and refused to do so.

So, here's where I think that we are, and posted about it a couple of months ago, was misunderstood by one or a few, so I'll try again, and perhaps explain myself better this time.

Here we go: It's unlikely that the US Supreme Court will set precident by re-hearing Eminent Domain again, so we go back into the US Supreme Court with a different arguement and attack it from a different angle. Perhaps arguing that we have a Constitutional right to protect our property - not a Constitutional interpretation like the Eminent Domain issue that extended it to private owners taking from private owners to generate a larger tax base, but instead an actual Constitutional right to protect our property. How can we enjoy our Constitutional right to protect our property if an "interpretation" says that we can't own property? That's just one possibilty.

Now here's my reasoning for that arguement, the same one that got me misunderstood the last time, and I hope the same person that jumped down my throat the last time takes a second this time to realize what it is that I'm trying to say before he does the same thing. Ever since a Supreme Court Justice wrote in the majority oppinion against the State of New Jersey (used to reimburse Parochial schools for bus fares for students/children) that there is a seperation of church and state, many have used that ruling to say no Pledge of Alligiance in public schools, no prayers in legislative sessions, no posting of the 10 Commandments on public property, no religious symbals on city crests, etc. You get the idea, and they "WERE" winning those cases, UNTIL recently when those (myself included) went back into courts and began arguing another case, "attacking it from a different angle", and now they (we) are winning. Instead of attacking the seperation of church and state arguement, the arguement changed to "I have a Constitutional right to free speech, and these guys are suppressing it, and that can't be". That's a lttle simplistic, but you get the idea - We can't fight Eminent Domain or seperation of church and state persay, but we can change the outcome by arguing a different arguement. It can and has worked for church and state, so such a strategy just might work with Eminent Domain. And since the overall complexion of the Supreme Court has changed with the addition of Roberts and Alito, perhaps its time to make that "OTHER" arguement to change the outcome, eh?

Incidentally, I used to live in Elkhart, IN. before selling and moving to Bristol. A few years ago, these 2 athiests argued and won that those huge, beautiful mable 10 Commandments that sat outside the Municipal Bldg on 2nd Street for decades had to move off of public property. We fought it for awhile, but the ICLU (Indiana's version/little brother of the ACLU) had deeper pockets than we did. So, someone donated private property on the south-east corner of the Main St. bridge and they were moved there, and are under lights now. For decades few saw them as they sat on 2nd St, and now everyone coming into the town from the north can't help but see them. Ha Ha Ha Ha. And the funny part? Not long after being moved there, and athiest type that worked somewhere across the street became offended that he now had to see them all the time and complained. Too friggin bad, they're now on private property, is no issue of a seperation of church and state, shove it right up his a$$ as deep as he can take it.

We can fight and win Eminent Domain, we just can't call it that. I have faith in the NEW complexion of Justices.

Mark