开云体育

Hi Again All,

Believe it or not, I really don’t enjoy sending all these emails, and I apologize that this is in part repetitious for those of you at the meeting Thursday night. But I think that it’s important for the community to understand the constraints and why the mailboxes end up sited wherever (and if) they are sited.

Sharon and I are leaving for the summer in late May, and my personal goal is to have the mailboxes installed by the time I leave. I started working on this last September. Installation of the mailboxes by late May, nine months from last September, doesn’t seem like an unreasonable goal. But this timetable maybe too ambitious, and I may be more impatient for results than the rest of the community.

At least three things should be considered in evaluating potential sites: legality, spaciousness, and convenience. Legality is by far the most important and most time consuming, thus I propose that we work on the legality of three sites simultaneously. I see nothing to gain by writing a letter to one landowner and waiting for their decision before contacting the next landowner. We will just lose momentum. If more than one landowner gives us permission to install mailboxes, that will be fantastic. Then we can pick the site that is most spacious and convenient. But, I suspect that we won’t have many legal options. I have no favorited site; I just want to have mailboxes.

The land situation and compass directions are key. Regarding the compass, just remember that east is downhill towards the San Pedro River and west is towards the mountains on the other side of Hy 92. The Road District own a 40 ft strip of land from near 3 Canyons to the beginning of Fairfield Estates (FE) (attached map). In FE the district doesn’t own the land the road is on, rather it’s on the 40ft wide easements along the west side of private properties. This is important because in FE there are easement agreements specifically between the Road District and the property owners. The Road District has no such easement agreements with property owners outside of FE.

Most important, the road is about 17 ft wide, and it runs along the east side of the Road District property and the easements in FE. This means that south of FE the Road District owns only a few feet of property east of the road and that in FE there is only a few feet of easement east of the road.

Legally, the sites on the west side of the road are the simplest to deal with regarding mailboxes because the Road District either owns the land or has an easement agreement with the landowner in FE (e.g. #3 attached map). But these sites are problematic because the surveyors haven’t been out, and we don’t know the exact location of the property line. We have been told the property line is near the fence, and the distance between the fence and road varies from about 15 to 23 ft. If the property line is more than a few feet from the fence, then the sites on the west side of the road may be too narrow to accommodate the mailboxes and parking.

Sites on the east side of the road must be on the easements of the Palominas School District (site #1) or Vista del Oro HOA (site #2) (or in FE, beyond the easement and on private land). The Road District has no easement agreements with them. The easement documents for the school district and VDO HOA are very generic, allowing for “ingress and egress and underground utilities”, and are not as broad and permissive as the agreements between the road district and ES landowners. The easements for the school district and VDO HOA properties are attractive because they are 40’ wide, and we might negotiate a more spacious site than at #3, if somewhat less convenient. Nevertheless, they are more problematic legally than site #3, and we will need permission (e.g. good will) of either the school district or VDO HOA to install mailboxes on their easements.

I propose that we deal with the legal issues of sites #1, #2, and #3 simultaneously. In fact, this has already started for sites #1 and #2. Jim and Jimmy are contacting Palominas School District regarding site #1 (see a following email). I have emailed the entire Vista Del Oro Board regarding site #2 (see a following email).

I certainly hope the school district or the VDO HOA approves our request, and they do so in a timely manner. But honestly, I’m not overly optimistic. Both are bureaucracy with all sorts of rules, and I don’t see that they have any motivation to approve it. But I hope I’m wrong.

If the school district and VDO HOA turn us down, what alternative do we have? In that case I think site #3 on the west side of the road is the most attractive, even if it’s narrow.? I propose we? have the road district attorney, Nathan Williams, send a letter to the property owner of site #3 telling them we intend to install mailboxes and giving them 30 days to respond. It’s going to cost perhaps a couple hundred dollars for Nathan to send the letter, but it could save us a lot of time in moving forward if the school district and VDO HOA respond negatively or don’t respond at all.

Is this moving too fast for the community?

Ken