Its all about the roads
|
Its all about the roads
|
|
Siskiyou County Government urges you to read this before you buy land or move
here:
|
The road not followed...because it isn't there! I recently heard from a potential landowner whose vehicle became stuck after he followed an association road to its end, an end that came without warning and was not signed as a dead-end. I had a similar experience a few years ago on another road. See "Don't Go There" for details about these two incidents. The only real purpose of the association is to maintain roads, and that should be the only focus of the directors. The job should be undertaken in an organized, scientific manner, with the roads analyzed and the most hazardous situations targeted first. And the situation described above is rife with potential disaster. During the Hotlum Fire there were many out-of-area firefighters coming into our area to protect us. They did not know their way around and could have easily wound up stuck on this or a similar road. Recent firefighter deaths resulting from a fire truck running off a road in Southern California should remind us of the importance of avoiding that situation. Such an incident could prove deadly to someone with a medical condition. Two large fire trucks should be able to pass one another on any part of any road in the subdivision, whether there are developed parcels on that road or not. Where there are dead-end roads, they should be clearly marked at the preceding intersection, and it should be possible for a large fire truck to turn around without getting stuck. All roads should have the vegetation cleared away from the edges. I understand that accomplishing these goals is a very expensive proposition but as the ancient Chinese saying goes, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." We need to make that our goal and then get to work on it. Vegetation crowds the roads throughout the subdivision and every year the association spends money for roadside "fuel reduction". This should also be done in a scientific manner. There should be a written policy about how the decision will be made as to which roadside areas will be "brushed" and "limbed". The policy should include an analysis of the volume of traffic along the roadways, and those roads with the highest volume of traffic should be compared on the basis of visibility along the roads. So the roads chosen each year would be high-traffic areas where the vegetation creates a hazard by blocking visibility of oncoming traffic. The analysis should involve some people who do not live here, perhaps local fire experts with government agencies would offer assistance. This would help to maintain some sense of objectivity and to avoid the perception that any kind of self-serving decision-making is in force. The association should also get creative about removing brush along the roads, which increases the fire hazard as well as raising traffic concerns. According to Siskiyou County Planning Department, the Property Owners Association (POA) owns a piece of land 30 feet wide on either side of the center of the road. The POA stance on property owners clearing brush along this area has been explained to me as "we cannot let people clear the brush adjacent to their properties because they will sue us if they get hurt while doing it". Or "We can't do that because that 30 feet is not necessarily measured from the center of the road and we don't know where the property line really is." I am not an attorney, and unlike some of our directors, I do not pretend to know the law. However, attorneys have told me that "You can sue anybody for anything you want. You may not win the lawsuit, but you can sue." So it seems to me that our directors, and all of us, considering we are the POA and any lawsuit eventually comes back to us, should be equally concerned about being sued for not allowing property owners to clear brush on POA land adjacent to their properties. After all, that brush can block safe entrance and exit from the privately owned property and can even contribute to the spread of fire across the roadways. So instead of threatening to fine people for removing brush adjacent to their properties, I would suggest that the directors first brainstorm on solutions, and then meet with our attorney to review those brainstormed ideas and to find ways of protecting ourselves from the potential legal repercussions while we encourage landowners to remove that vegetation. These protections might include contracts and waivers or allowing people to bring in temporary fencing and letting goats work the area or whatever. I do not pretend to know the answers, but am rather advocating a change in approach to the problems. The point is, we should be looking for ways to allow people to make our community safer rather than finding excuses for not allowing it. |