A handful of area residents made their dissatisfaction clear when the Boulder City Council met May 24 to discuss a new road to the community’s cemetery.
“Why are we having this hearing now when the road’s already in?” asked Carellen Nix.
“Probably because I was a little faster than they were,” said Buster Bullock, who built the road on property owned by his family. Bullock explained that he had spoken with Mayor Gary Craft and Public Works Director Dennis Wortman before he began and believed he had approval to proceed.
“I took it as I got the go-ahead,” he said. Craft confirmed he spoke with Bullock and alerted the council that there would be a request regarding the cemetery road coming to them. But he also said he advised Bullock that the plan would require council approval. The old road to the cemetery crosses property recently purchased by Bullock’s son and the family wanted to be able to install an irrigation pivot on the land, said Bullock. They discovered there was no recorded easement for the existing road, even though the road has been in place and used by the public for more than a century, he said.
To clear matters up, Bullock said he offered to build the new road and grant a properly recorded public easement to the city in exchange for abandonment of the old road. The move would also make the recently purchased property more useful, he said.
“We were just trying to fix some old sins, survey-wise,” he said. The benefit would be that the easement would be legal and documented so that “down the road, anybody that wants to see that easement can see it,” said City Attorney Steven Shapiro.
Shapiro said the old road would be an easement “by prescriptive use” because it has long been used openly by the public, saying he could defend that in court, but it would take court action if matters could not be worked out otherwise.
Bullock said the new road is twice as wide as the old one and “I think it’s a benefit for the city by a long shot.”
Cheryl Haasakker, who lives near the new road, said she was there to express the concerns she had heard from many older people in the community. The cemetery and matters about it are a very sensitive topic, she said. “It means a lot to a lot of the older generation,” she said. She also complimented the road, though, calling it a “nice road” and “definitely an improvement.”
“My only concern was that this public hearing was not earlier,” said Nix.
Councilmember Shane Maichel asked, “Why didn’t you come to us first?” Bullock said he may have made a couple of mistakes but was just trying to help the community and clarify the records. He also defended his right to build a road on his own land if he wanted to without council permission.
Rancher Brud Smith, who owns a small portion of the land under the new road and has agreed to transfer an easement to the city, said Bullock might not be the best communicator, but he is a good neighbor who “builds good fences and good roads.” Smith added, “His word is good.” He advised the council to “remember the old cowboy adage: never look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Things grew a bit testy when Maichel said, “It doesn’t sit well with me.”
“I don’t care if it sits well with you..It is on my property,” replied Bullock. Bullock told Haasakker that if she would give him the names of the senior citizens he upset he would personally call them and apologize.
Bev Remmick accused Bullock of just plowing his way into things without listening or caring, something he disputed. He also pointed out that if someone else owned the ground, the city could be in for a real fight to straighten out ownership and easement issues.
Cory Kirsch, area resident and county commissioner, said in his experience, defending a prescriptive use claim is not easy. “It might have been a huge fight,” he said. City officials said there would be no expense at all to the city. The only purchase was a new cattle guard, purchased at the request of the public works director.
“I was getting very upset with kids tipping over headstones and I realized it was cows,” said Wortman.
Lori Smith said it was a lovely road and underscored Craft’s statement that the council had been alerted that a request would becoming. The council voted two to one to approve the new road with documentation of easement changes. Voting in favor were Bettie Schlueter and Gary Richardson. Maichel opposed.
Bullock also let the council know he will be coming with a proposal to extend the cemetery to the east in trade for a sliver of land elsewhere. Shapiro asked that the proposal be put in writing and lined out on a map. Craft said the proposal will go to the cemetery board first and then be on the council’s July agenda.
The council also heard from Wortman that the city has no recorded easements for the water line or approaches to the water tower. At this point the city can get there because “we have a road to get there and we have neighbors that say, ‘Yeah, go ahead,’” he told the council. That will be a matter for the city to clear up in the future, said city officials.
