Neighbors draw the line

A daunting task lies before Jackson County Road and Bridge Superintendent Al Green.
A wooden privacy fence at the end of a county road is at the heart of a dispute between neighbors in the Cypress community. Green has been put in charge of bringing more information about the matter to the Jackson County Commission, which was drawn into the tangle this week.
Green was told to search out every resource he could find to help the county resolve the matter.
This means he may want to go so far as to look up the retired motor-grader operator who used to maintain the road, commissioners suggested.
Starting from its northern point, Main Street begins at U.S. Highway 90 in Cypress and dead-ends a little more than two miles down the road. Exactly how far it extends is a matter of opinion and interpretation. A distance of inches looms large in the argument.
The neighbor objecting to the fence says the county has historically maintained the road to the edge of her property, and it therefore has an obligation to make her neighbor take his fence down so she can continue to walk from the road to her property behind it.
She has other access to her land on Cherry Road, but says she enjoyed walking with her children from Main Street to another point on her property. She maintains the county is obligated to keep that route open, and make her neighbor remove the fence blocking access.
Complicating the matter is another fence that enters into the argument, a wire one that was put up by an earlier generation of family members near her property line. It has since been removed and a newer, sturdier metal fence erected. The newer metal fence does not cross Main Street.
The new metal fence belonging to her, and the new wooden privacy fence belonging to her neighbor, are mere inches from each other, but hers runs a shorter length and does not cross Main St.
The original location and length of the old fence may also be a matter of dispute.
At some point, it appears, the old fence may have crossed Main Street, or the area just beyond it. Green said at a recent meeting in which the matter was discussed that the old fence prevented his motor grader operator from maintaining the road all the way to the property line.
That may play a role in how the county ultimately defines the historically maintained portion of the right-of-way.
The neighbor who erected the new fence on his property says he got an informal opinion from the road department that indicates his fence line is beyond the maintained portion of the road. He asserts he was well within his rights to erect the fence where he did.
With the parties at odds about the matter, county commissioners want to take a long look at the issue.
Green is expected to help the commission determine its formal position on the length of the road, whether it was all consistently maintained by the county, and how the county should proceed in dealing with the neighborhood dispute.