COOK- After a tumultuous November meeting at which the town board chair and town clerk resigned and attendees were abruptly ejected from the meeting with the assistance of a sheriff’s deputy, the Owens Township board met Tuesday to put the pieces of a functioning government back together.
The town board was left with only two supervisors, Mike Christensen and Doyle Svedberg, and no chairman after the resignation of chairman Wally Refsdahl in response to ongoing controversy over the status of a portion of Derusha Rd. Longtime town clerk Shirley Woods also resigned over the controversy.
Filling positions was the first order of business at Tuesday’s meeting.
To bring the board back to full strength, Dave Dundas, owner of a Hibbing-based construction company and co-owner with his wife Paula of Northwoods Bait and Tackle in Cook, was appointed to fill Refsdahl’s unexpired supervisor term. Christensen was chosen to be the board chairman.
The board then appointed Cindy Caroon to the vacated clerk’s position, and with her newly-granted authority Caroon named Linden Grove town clerk Rick Deatherage as deputy clerk. Deatherage said he agreed to accept the position to provide support to Caroon as she learns the ins and outs of the clerk position. Deatherage said it was his understanding that a deputy town clerk does not have to live in the township.
Back to the road
A discussion of the Derusha Rd. situation was added to the board’s agenda for the meeting, and most of the landowners affected were present seeking clarification that was elusive during contentious conversation at the November meeting.
What they got, however, was basically more of the same, albeit in a more civil and lower-key exchange.
The primary issue involves a short portion of Derusha Rd. beginning at the driveway of property owners J.R. and Kim Koenck and extending west about 125 feet to the driveway of Dorothy Easterday. A third property involved is owned by Easterday’s daughter, Lisa Ollikkala, and is adjacent to both Easterday’s property and a portion of the disputed road.
In 2019, the township attorney told the parties that the disputed road was private property, and any issues between them were to be settled by them and not the township. In essence, in the attorney’s opinion, Derusha Rd. from the Koenck’s driveway did not exist, and therefore the property lines extended to the middle of the road.
Believing the attorney to be correct and armed with a survey delineating the property line, the Koencks have subsequently built a fence out of junked vehicles and logs to mark their property, narrowing the segment of road to a single narrow lane. The county used to run its snowplow past Easterday’s driveway but can no longer access the narrowed lane. Easterday contends this represents an undue hardship for her, as she has to hire a private contractor to plow the short stretch in the winter and encounters difficulty getting in and out of her driveway. The narrowed lane could also restrict the access of fire trucks or an ambulance in case of an emergency, Easterday says.
Also affected are owners of undeveloped properties beyond Easterday’s house to the west that used an unmaintained extension of Derusha Rd. for access. Two of those plots, owned by Kit Olson, are pasture used for haying. Svedberg has said that he is purchasing the plots on contract from Olson, and that the narrowed road prevents any harvesting or transport equipment from getting through. Without a road, the properties are landlocked, a condition prohibited by state law.
Since coming on the town board, Christensen and Svedberg have contended that the former town board’s inaction on Derusha Rd. was improper. Svedberg unearthed a 1925 township road order for Derusha Rd. which legally establishes its existence west to Olson Rd. Under that scenario, the disputed road segment would not be private property, but rather would belong to the township and could only be restricted and abandoned by a legally required public meeting, which has never occurred.
J.R. Koenck proposed a way to bring clarity to the situation.
“Can you do the paperwork with St. Louis County stating that it’s been abandoned officially?” he said.
“I don’t know about stating that,” Christensen responded.
“Well, this could go on for years,” Koenck replied.
Christensen’s response was one he would repeat in some form multiple times throughout the rest of the meeting.
“This is why everybody’s got to have a lawyer,” he said. “I am not a lawyer, and the township is not a lawyer.”
Koenck reminded the board of statements made at the November meeting that the disputed portion of Derusha Rd. is legally a road as he sought to make his point that the board needs to provide clarity.
“Who owns the land?” he said. “You guys told us a month ago that it was a road. That was your understanding. We would like it to be officially abandoned or made into a road, whatever the township would like to do.”
Christensen appeared to switch direction in his response, nearly echoing the 2019 township attorney’s opinion that he had previously claimed was in error.
“Well, the way it sounds right now is that there is not a road, but these people are landlocked,” he said. “So, it’s going to have to be coming down to the landowners getting together and working something out.”
However, it appears St. Louis County has tossed a new wrinkle into the situation.
“We’re running into a problem with the county here on the snow plowing,” Christensen said. “We’re going to have to change the turnaround. The county wants all the turnarounds going to the right.”
Christensen tossed out multiple possibilities for turnarounds that would use land owned by Steve Fogelberg, Ollikkala, Easterday, or Dan Baumgartner, proceeding from east to west.
“I don’t know if Steve Fogelberg would want us turning around in his field or if Lisa has enough land there. If that doesn’t happen, then I guess we wouldn’t have much choice but to go on past Dorothy’s on that road and make a turnaround. Baumgartner has said that he will give up the land no problem for a turnaround there.”
And the placement of the turnaround will have legal implications for the status of Derusha Rd.
“The township’s interest is going to end where the turnaround is. I didn’t make up the rules, I’m just relating what the attorney told me. What the lawyer told me was when he’s looking on a map, he said it ends where the turnaround is.”
Using that guideline, should the turnaround end up being on Easterday’s or Baumgartner’s property, Derusha Rd. would officially extend to that point, which is beyond the narrowed road segment where the Koencks have established their property line.
J.R. Koenck renewed his plea for the township board to act.
“I think the township needs to do an official thing as to what has happened to that property,” he said. “Did it get abandoned?”
“No, it didn’t get abandoned,” Christensen said.
“Well, the township has to do that before anybody can do any kind of easement, before anybody can make any agreement. Because I don’t know if it’s my property, I don’t know if it’s the township’s. I thought it was my property.”
“Abandoning that road would be a big deal because we will have to have a special meeting and the public has to come,” Christensen said.
“It’s not a big expense, though. It’s another meeting, but it would be the right thing to do one way or another, whether you decide to abandon it or not,” Koenck said. “Whatever you decide, we would like something official done so that we know where we’re at, and then the neighbors can go from there.”
Koenck was asked if he’d be willing to move the vehicles and other items on the road, and his response reinforced his quest for some sort of resolution.
“I won’t answer that question until we find out whose property it is,” he said. “Is it the township’s property or my property?”
The discussion strayed into related issues raised at the November meeting, and it became clear that no definitive answers would be forthcoming at the meeting.
“We’ve got to move on,” Christensen said. “We’re not really discussing or getting anywhere. There are lawyers involved. Something we have to decide on is where the end of the road is going to be, and then that’s going to be the end of it.”