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Neighbors vs. neighbor in Sams Valley road dispute By Buffy Pollock Updated: Nov 30, 2022 03:17 PM A A Residents and supporters of the Traunesian Sanctuary camp out at an access point near Meadows and Beagle roads to prevent a nearby property owner from bulldozing the gravel road that provides access to nearly two dozen homes. [Jamie Lusch / Mail Tribune] Residents and supporters of the Traunesian Sanctuary camp out at an access point near Meadows and Beagle roads to prevent a nearby property owner from bulldozing the gravel road that provides access to nearly two dozen homes. [Jamie Lusch / Mail Tribune] The sudden demolition of an access road used for decades to reach 20 or more homes on the flanks of Neil Rock, a mountain area west of Meadows Road in Sams Valley, has turned a long-running squabble between neighbors into a situation of landlocked homes and armed residents standing guard over the road that leads to their small community. Since Nov. 10, residents of an area known as the Traunesian Sanctuary have camped out near an access gate installed by neighboring property owner Rodney Womack. Neighbors allege Womack, who installed the gate, bulldozed a section of the 2-mile-long dirt and gravel road Neighbors cut off from their homes by the bulldozer plowed a rough section of road back into place, and now they guard it to make sure Womack doesn’t bulldoze it again, though the road is still too rough for many vehicles. Residents without four-wheel-drive vehicles are unable to get through. Neighbors claim the road was created on an easement while Womack says it’s private property, and he said he’s been trying to eliminate access across his land since purchasing the property in the mid-1990s. Womack installed a metal gate last spring, but he only recently told neighbors he planned to finally lock the gate. Womack and neighbors say Jackson County needs to step in and determine the legalities of the road and access to properties, but county officials don’t seem to want any part in the dispute, saying it’s a civil matter. The Traunesian Sanctuary began as a hippie commune in the 1960s, according to stories in the Mail Tribune archives. County officials say the area contains a mix of documented and undocumented properties. Historically, homes have been located on the mountain, and access bartered for and granted, since the early 1900s. Sandi Kelley, a property owner in the area, said she purchased her property off Avenue of the Sun — at the top of the Traunesian Access Road — at a foreclosure auction two years ago. Kelley has been searching through property records and historical documents to determine how long the road has provided access for homes on the mountain, and she said neighbors have used it for a century. “What I really want to know is how is the county selling these properties and how are they collecting taxes on these properties if they’re calling them illegal? How did they sell me my parcel if it’s illegal, like they’re claiming? That’s like a cop saying, ‘You’re doing drugs, but if you give me money that’s OK, even though it’s still illegal,’” Kelley said. “If you look at my deed from when the county sold it — all the other ones say improvements only — mine says ‘Lot 35 and all improvements.’ Everybody else’s says improvements only, like they only got the home but not necessarily the land. If it’s illegal, what did they sell to me?” Of the documents she’s uncovered online and at the county records office, Kelley produced a county surveyor’s record that shows an easement granted in 1916 by onetime property owner George Stacy to allow residents of the area to “get to the market.” Kelley said she and neighbors have always used the access road, and that access was even included in the description of the property when she bought it. Kelley and neighbors say they plan to continue camping at the end of the road to ensure access is not destroyed, or until they have some assurances it won’t be. The neighbors have started a petition (change.org) but Kelley said the group is currently unable to afford legal help with the matter. “This started with me getting a text on my lunch break saying, ‘He dozed the road.’ I slept in my car blocking the road the first night, so he couldn’t destroy it again after we put it back,” she said. “Luckily, I had water delivered just before it happened. I have cattle and livestock. I now have to hand off bags of feed and other stuff to somebody else because I cannot make it up the road in my car. We’re all afraid to sleep. We had people blocking a bulldozer with their bodies at one point. … At some point I hope he figures out that he’s financially responsible for landlocking every home above him.” Kelley said local officials want nothing to do with the access road issue, though she said a sheriff’s deputy thanked her for making improvements to the road to allow access for emergency responders. A few property owners at the bottom of the hillside are Fire District 3 customers but those further up have no official fire protection for structures, just wildland protection from Oregon Department of Forestry. Dustin Owens, who lives off the access road with his family, said Womack blocking access had added stress to a difficult time for his family. Owens and his wife recently had a baby that had to spend time in neonatal intensive care and a special care nursery. “To find out in the midst of having a baby in the hospital that you can’t go home, it’s something different, all right,” said the father. “I had to quit my job to be at the hospital for my baby. It’s been one thing after another. … Some days (Womack) comes up with his hand on his gun. Other times he’s just saying, ‘Oh, hey, how are ya?’ That’s why you have everybody down here with their guns.” Even before the road was bulldozed, Owens said, the addition of the gate on the road prevented some neighbors from using various services, such as having trash bins dropped off or hay or water delivered by anything bigger than a pickup truck. “With the smaller tank, you have to go more often, so it’s more money and more wear and tear on vehicles. I had a water truck and was delivering water for everybody up here. Lost out money on that, and the neighbors all were short on water all summer,” he said. “The posts are so narrow we can’t get through.” Womack said he’d left the road open for longer than he initially wanted in hopes the sanctuary residents would establish legal access that didn’t involve his property. He said his reason for closing the road was to secure his property and do away with speeding, erratic behavior, trash dumping, drug paraphernalia and damage to his land. The area used to have a handful of access roads, but over time neighbors fenced those off, he said. A newer road was constructed on the opposite side of Womack’s property, to allow access to a small number of Fire District 3 patrons. Those property owners have allegedly denied access to sanctuary residents. “I’m basically not telling anyone where to go or how to get there. I don’t want to tell any property owner what they can and can’t do, and I don’t want any property owners telling me what I can and can’t do. I have every right to secure my property. It’s nothing against these people. It may affect them, but it’s not personal,” Womack said. Womack took issue with county officials deeming the access dispute — and related issues — a “civil matter.” “They shoot at my fence post, holler, rev their engines and throw garbage. I was going to shut the gates about a month ago, and I had a bunch of people showing up down here with strong-arm tactic kind of stuff. I called it off. I said, ‘No, I don’t want that.’ I’m very disappointed the sheriff’s department is playing the civil card,” he added. “Jackson County signed off on all their properties without that access being there, and now the county has put me in a very bad spot to bear the burden of figuring up this mess.” Womack, who has a lawyer working on the easement issue, said there are other access points neighbors could buy into or seek to use. Whether other property owners will allow them to do so, he said, “isn’t for me to worry about.” Sanctuary neighbors recently consulted a lawyer but have to fundraise for the cost before they can request an injunction on destruction of the road. “The county is pitting neighbors against neighbors,” added Womack. “A lot of these folks I’ve drank beer with them and said, ‘Hey, how ya doin’?’ I’m as real as real gets. It’s not for me to fix this. Times are tough, and sometimes we need to get off of what we want and engage on figuring out what’s best for us all.” County officials have declined to comment on the matter to the Mail Tribune. During a discussion of the matter at a county commissioners meeting last week, County Administrator Danny Jordan said the county had no authority over the access road and could not weigh in on the dispute. Jordan told commissioners the access road was neither public nor legally established. Any easements existing prior to establishment of Camp White, which encompassed the area in the 1940s, were vacated during that era, he said. Jordan said county roads officials did a thorough records search and found “no record of any public road west of Meadows Road in the vicinity of Beagle Road” despite the road providing access to an illegal subdivision for “the past 40 years.” County Counsel Joel Benton told the commissioners that use of the road by emergency personnel or even indication of the road on Geographic Information System or Oregon Department of Transportation maps also did not imply the road was the property or responsibility of Jackson County. “There has to be physically some sort of dedication to the public. If ODOT decides they want to label it as a road, ODOT can name anything they want. The county doesn’t control that. If ECSO (Emergency Communications of Southern Oregon) wants to call it a road, that’s not something the county controls. So, really, we only have authorization under the ORS for things that are either public roads or county roads,” Benton explained. “As far as we can tell, there is no county legal right or public easement or public right of access over that piece of property. We’ve looked at it several times. We’ve looked at various documents the neighbors and Mr. Womack have provided. … Whether or not the public has driven on it, whether or not the public has used it since 1960, doesn’t mean that the county has an interest in the road.” Jordan said he believed there had to be a solution between the neighbors, and both sides should seek legal help. Jordan added, “The county doesn’t have the authority to weigh in on an issue between two private property owners.” Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 541-776-8784 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal.