Posted: 6/26/07
Sheldon Township property dispute
brought before Houston County Board
By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
Houston County may have a property dispute on its hands. Attorney Tim Murphy, representing Richard Chapel of Sheldon Township, brought the issue before the board of commissioners at their June 19 meeting.
According to Murphy, the Chapel family has owned property in Sheldon Township for three generations. A number of years ago, the Botcher family gave a section of land to Houston County to be used as a nature area. The land given to the county abuts Chapelís property.
The dispute surfaced when the countyís property, known as Botcher Park, was surveyed. According to the survey, a fence line which the Chapels have maintained for many years and about 15 acres of land they have farmed and logged, is actually part of Botcher Park.
Murphy feels the situation could be deemed "implied ownership," where someone occupies, uses, and maintains the property as if it was his or her own for more than 15 years without any objection from the rightful property owner. The party using the land can acquire the title to the property by adverse possession.
Murphy contacted Houston County Attorney Rick Jackson about the issue, but Jackson hasnít addressed the issue yet. Jackson was unable to attend the June 19 meeting.
"I felt it was important to present this to the county board and get some discussion going," Murphy said. "I didnít expect a decision from the county board today, but we would like to see some action taken on this sometime soon."
The commissioners indicated they would discuss the issue with Jackson in the near future, and then make some type of decision on it.
In other action
Comparable worth review
County Personnel Director Tim Comstock informed the board four departments will be reviewed to see if their salaries and responsibilities are in line with persons in comparable work situations.
The four departments include highway, public health nursing, veterans service and the county attorneyís office.
In a memo to the board, Comstock explained, "every political subdivision is required to use a job evaluation system in order to determine the "comparable work value" of the work performed by each class of it employees. The system must be maintained and updated to account for new employee classes and any changes in factors affecting the comparable work value of existing classes.
"Comparable work value or comparable worth means the value of work measured by the skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions normally required in the performance of the work," Comstock continued.
"Houston County retains a consultant to apply the Decision Band Method (DBM) to determine the comparable work value or comparable worth of our positions and will be conducting comparable worth reviews for positions that have undergone substantial change since they were last reviewed.
"The bottom line is that the comparable worth review process assesses and evaluates what any employee may be required to perform in their position and has historically validated the fact that a majority of county positions are correctly rated," Comstockís memo concluded.
Paving bid approved
Commissioners approved the low bid of $1,469,641 submitted by Mathy Construction for 8.74 miles of bituminous paving. The Mathy bid was more than $400,000 less than the bid submitted by Knife River Midwest, LLC- $1,883,363, and $236,000 less than the engineerís estimate.
"We are pleased with this bid," County Highway Engineer Marcus Evans said. "Even though it is a lot of money, itís still more than $236,000 less than our estimate."
The major portion of the project will be 6.74 miles of CSAH 17 from State Highway 44 to State Highway 76 in Wilmington Township. The remainder is a two-mile section of CSAH 4 in Spring Grove Township.
Family Health programs
Mary Zaffke and Mary Thompson of the Public Health Department presented the board with an overview of the Family Health programs available to county residents.
Zaffke, who has been working with Public Health for the past 20 years, told of two different scenarios where Public Health was able to make a major difference in the lives of area families - one being a single father and the other being a single homeless mother.
Through WIC, Home Safety, Dental Referral, and Early Childhood Education programs, the formative years of the children in each family were improved drastically.
"The health, safety, education, and welfare of young children is so important," Zaffke said.
"This board has always been of the opinion the first five years are so important in the development of our children," Commissioner Ann Thompson said. "We feel funding early childhood programs is money well spent."
Commissioner Larry Graf echoed Thompsonís thoughts. "It would be a very big loss to this county and its residents if we didnít have Public Health. Weíve funded it since 1974 and I feel you are doing an excellent job," he told Zaffke, Thompson and Public Health Director Deb Rock.
Caledonia Argus
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