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Actually, permits are not required for fences anywhere in the country.
Not true. A fence permit is required in my Texas community, there are specific design rules, and a permit fee of $50 is necessary. That was true of my last town in Illinois as well.
No, they aren't. Do you deny that Americans have a right to private property?
And if you refuse to get a permit or pay the fine, the city has a right to send police arrest you, and to shoot you dead if you don't come along peacefully.
I'm from Ohio and I've been down in Texas since June surveying power circuits. It's fun, I get to work outside all day with minimal supervision and the compensation is great. My supervisors seem to like me and and as far as I can tell I've been doing a great job. I was out in west Texas all summer and I hardly saw anyone but now that I'm on the outskirts of San Antonio people are everywhere. I'd estimate 75% of properties down here have locked gates. Big problem with this- The company we are working for has a policy that If we come across a locked gate we are to leave a doorknocker at the gate, climb the fence and proceed to the front door to let the owner know what we're up to. I had a woman answer her door with a shotgun once, I've had the police called on me and I've been yelled at/ lectured several times. Sometimes you'll be walking a line out in a field and you're never exactly sure whose property you're on. I dress professional and I'm decked out in neon yellow when I work but that hasn't stopped people from bothering me.
I'm 1.5 years out of college and this is the first job in my field (GIS). Ideally I'd like to hold down a professional job for at least a year but then again getting shot would really suck. I would like to believe I'm just paranoid but I really don't think that's the case. Indeed.com is calling
This project lasts till April. I'm thinking I should hold out and hope that I end up somewhere a little less gun happy on my next project. What are your thoughts? Do you think there's a real risk here?
Those locked gates are to prevent trespassing. Your boss is not supposed to make unlawful requests. You sound like you are a lineman or a surveyor. Buy a red or yellow hardhat. People usually assume that you are on the job.
I would bet that people are polite where there a lot of guns.
It would be interesting to learn a little more about the circumstances of the OP's employer; there aren't many people left who can remember the days when rural America became electrified, with some help from the New Deal.
In the years 1900-1930, it wasn't unknown for small communities to generate their own power; a small generating station sufficient to serve a community of a few hundred would consume only a carload or two of coal now and then, or an institution like a factory, college, or hospital might have its own generating station. Small-volume users. if nearby, could then tap into the system for a one-time cost for the connection, plus the monthly bills to follow. But the service ended where the cost of stringing new line became too great. A similar phenomenon limited the growth of cable television -- and still does in many communities.
To address this issue, rural electric co-operatives were formed in many areas; these institutions specifically devoted themselves to serving the needs of local consumers. But their operations became more burdensome as the costs of "overhead" rose, and once the wires were in place, it usually became more attractive to turn the operation over to the dominant utility in the area.
So it might be helpful if our OP could, without giving away his or his employer's anonymity, provide some details on the origins of the system under which he works.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 12-31-2014 at 06:42 PM..
And if you refuse to get a permit or pay the fine, the city has a right to send police arrest you, and to shoot you dead if you don't come along peacefully.
"Right" to shoot you dead?
Well, I doubt that, but I do know that you have no right to resist arrest. Push it far enough and you can get yourself shot. Or choked. Up to you.
I'm from Ohio and I've been down in Texas since June surveying power circuits. It's fun, I get to work outside all day with minimal supervision and the compensation is great. My supervisors seem to like me and and as far as I can tell I've been doing a great job. I was out in west Texas all summer and I hardly saw anyone but now that I'm on the outskirts of San Antonio people are everywhere. I'd estimate 75% of properties down here have locked gates. Big problem with this- The company we are working for has a policy that If we come across a locked gate we are to leave a doorknocker at the gate, climb the fence and proceed to the front door to let the owner know what we're up to. I had a woman answer her door with a shotgun once, I've had the police called on me and I've been yelled at/ lectured several times. Sometimes you'll be walking a line out in a field and you're never exactly sure whose property you're on. I dress professional and I'm decked out in neon yellow when I work but that hasn't stopped people from bothering me.
I'm 1.5 years out of college and this is the first job in my field (GIS). Ideally I'd like to hold down a professional job for at least a year but then again getting shot would really suck. I would like to believe I'm just paranoid but I really don't think that's the case. Indeed.com is calling
This project lasts till April. I'm thinking I should hold out and hope that I end up somewhere a little less gun happy on my next project. What are your thoughts? Do you think there's a real risk here?
Everyone has guns (figuratively speaking) but, for some reason a******s in Texas feel the overwhelming need to display or wave them around more than others.
Not true. A fence permit is required in my Texas community, there are specific design rules, and a permit fee of $50 is necessary. That was true of my last town in Illinois as well.
The town may unjustly fine you, but that doesn't mean the law says that you need a permit. The law does not say that.
Americans have the right to purchase property. If you purchase property and it has electricity on it, there will already be an easement contained within the deed. Here in Texas, you will see any legal easements (utility easements, etc.) clearly marked on the survey that you obtain at the time of purchase (before closing so you can review it) and in the documents sent to you before purchase by the title company that spell out any existing easements.
You generally have a right not to have electricity, but if you DO wish to hook up to the power grid, part of the agreement that you will enter into with the power company will give them an easement to access their property (equipment) for repairs. That's not taking away your right to own property; it's an agreement between two entities for the benefit of both. (If your power goes out because of damage on someone else's property, I'm pretty sure that you'd want the power company to fix it, right?).
You're making an argument based on nothing but emotion about something that does not at all impact your right to own property, and to enter into agreements to do so.
If you inherit the property, and there are no easements already in existence on it (easements convey with the land at purchase), and you don't want the services of the utility company, you won't need to allow any easements on your land. If you wish to purchase property and want land with no easements, simply find a piece for sale that doesn't already have them, purchase it, and do without utilities. Pretty simple - you have a choice!
OP, on our land, there is the pole bringing the power to our house and poles running across the adjoining properties (these are all properties in the 50 acres and up range). There is also a major power grid running across the back of the property (which the animals prefer to graze under, for some reason). There are easements to each. For the major one, there are gates in the fences running a long the side of our property that we may not lock without giving keys to the local electric coop. For the one coming to the house, they do have to go through a gate to our middle pasture, but they are always good about checking if we're home and letting us know not only that they are there but why. They do have to pass the house to get to that gate, which we do not keep locked for our own convenience. Yes, we have guns; no, we're not about to shoot them. Even the neighbor's really really big Angus bull will likely just look at them if they don't do anything stupid, and most of them are country boys and know how to behave so as not to tee off the bull (or, worse, the mama cows!). Nobody around here has any issues with getting the power fixed; we WANT it to be fixed!
As said, your only real worry is likely to be running across an operation that you don't want to know about, meth or some such. But that's not because it's Texas, or because we have guns. Don't let the stereotypes bite you!
This entire post reads like one long excuse to trample on individual private property rights. I'm not buying it.
Very strange policy requiring employees to break the law
They do not require their employees to break the law. They have the right to inspect their property (poles, lines, etc.).
However the person entering the property, if they don't let the owner know they are going to be on the property using the company rights to do so, is placing themselves in a position to have someone come out and wave a gun or call the sheriff's office on them.
Quote:
This entire post reads like one long excuse to trample on individual private property rights. I'm not buying it.
That is because you do not know about easement laws to provide easements for utilities passing through property, for roads, etc. These are rights that the company has paid for one way or the other. Sometimes money passes hands, or you don't have to pay to get your home hooked up to the utilities, etc. Those rights are filed with the county courthouse, and when you buy a property with easement rights through it, you are going to be given a map, showing you where the utility company has easement rights to use that part of your property. Or where there are road easement rights for a county road, etc.
When I was a teen ager, the gas utility drilled a well on the property the timber company owned that we had leased. They paid the timber company for the rights to drill, and a royalty on every cubic foot of gas the well produced. They had to dig a trench through the timber company land, and than about half a mile through our property. They paid us a fair amount of money for the times for this easement. They now had permanent access rights to the buried gas line. This was through timber through that part of our ranch. From the gas well to almost all the way to town over about 11 miles they had a retired Powder Monkey (what they call experts that use dynamite and other powder to blow holes or trenches) that was a friend of the family to blow a 4 foot deep trench for that 11 miles as there were too many big tree roots to use a trencher. It was interesting to watch. Alex was so good with powder, he would tell the helpers the company provided him where to use a power post hole digger and how deep to do. He would set the charges, and then call out fire in the hole (the way powder men let others know they are going to set off the charges), and everyone got ready to hide. When he set the charges off, the soil just moved up out of the hole to the sides like were using a trencher. No one could hardly believe it. Alex is the one that taught me to use powder.
My parents retired to a small ranch near town in Oregon. My father was dying from cancer, and wanted to clear it up around the house area, and had hired someone with a D8 cat (crawler tractor) to get rid of some stumps where he had cut the large fir trees. There was one they could not move with the cat, being bout 5 feet across. Dad told me to go get a half box of dynamite from the loft in the barn, and blow the stump so it could be removed. I did, and it was a good thing as the dynamite was starting to sweat and would soon be dangerous and could blow itself. I used a post hole digger to drill under the stump, set the powder and set it off. All we heard was a woof sound. The cat operator said that was a waste of powder, and when I told him to put the blade against the stump and lift to see what would happen he was real sceptical. He did and the stump just rolled out of the hole. I then looked at him and said that was what I had planned, as I did not want to endanger the house about 30 feet away. He passed the word all over the area, that I was the best powder man he had ever seen. I wore a suit to work as a salesman, and was not an outdoor worker, and it shocked him that I was that good with powder. Never told him that what I wanted to do was blow the stump out of the ground in the direction he rolled it, but did not have enough powder to do it and just got lucky. I enjoyed the reputation I gained from my dad's neighbors. Last time I ever used dynamite.
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