It shouldn't take "enlightened Solons" to sort this out, just a little common sense. But, maybe that's asking......oh, never mind.

Per the article, it's been tried: Now [city transportation planning division manager] Smith and other officials are hoping for a legislative fix that would limit the city's and residents' liability, though attempts to change two bills in the last session were unsuccessful.

Oh, Salem might get it right eventually. It took two sessions to fix the OHSU liability cap problem.

How do you expand an easement retroactively? If the easement is for utility line and maintenance, isn't it a taking from the owner to suddenly tell people that the land is open for hiking?

Is Fireman Randy going to get his armed security guards (he says he will try again to get them guns after Jan 1, 2010) to patrol these trails as well? Or will the armed guards hold the home owners at bay at gun point?

You think those stairs are bad? Don Baack acting through the SW Neighborhoods, Inc. organization has built even more dangerous stairs throughout SW Portland. The Tribune did an article on the stairs in the picture shortly after the city ordered them removed, and Baack boasted in that article that he's built much steeper stairs around SW Portland. It's one thing to exceed your authority, which SWNI and Baack do constantly, its another thing to create outright hazards. The woman who fell down one of these unauthorized paths livED in my neighborhood. She almost died from her fall. She is in an assisted living facility now because of the injuries she sustained thanks to SWNI and Baack. And they call themselves civic "leaders"?

Oh, and by the way.

These structures and trails were built by Don Baack and crew during the time he was acting president of the Hillsdale Neighborhood Association. Conflict of interest? Complaints by property owners to the HNA were immediately suppressed as the HNA attempted to lobby the city to act in their favor.

Brian Russell, president of Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc., has been in possession of the opinion from the city for over a month now. The residents of Southwest Portland are wondering when he will act responsibly and inform homeowners along the trails of their liability.

No permits of course.
These are blatant violations of building codes.
Anything more than three risers MUST have hand rails, among other violations.

Of course the city can claim these are temporary structures, like in Dignity Village, and avoid those pesky rules for everyone else.

major error to assume that all the folks involved in SWNI are supportive of Mr. Baack or his multitudinous follies, of which the staris and trails are but a small part.

Well, the stairs between Thurman and Aspen in NW Portland are well built and well designed and well lighted. Not saying that you can't slip and fall; I have when it's icy, but you can't blame the stairs.

Baack is a bull-headed, arrogant individual, who acts like he runs all of SW Portland. Its well time SWNI and Brian Russell end Baack's follies or they should be sued by the women's family an/or the affected property owners.

That's all well and good Nonny, but SW Trails is a subcommitte of SWNI, meaning SWNI IS responsible for Don Baack's illegal acts. If you are a SWNI "insider," maybe you can tell us what SWNI intends to do about all the property owners who are liable for these dangerous trails and stairs. So far, SWNI allows Baack to do all the talking, and Baack's not doing SWNI any favors. But it sounds like you might agree on that point.

Like just about everything that's wrong with Portland, I'll blame Neil Goldschmidt for this one too.

He started the whole neighborhood organization system during his mayorship back nearly 30 years ago. Being Portland's original community organizer, he created the system that lets people like Baack and SW Trails exist in the first place.

Fireman Randy and Mayor Creepy are just Version 4 (V2=Bud Clark, V3=Vera Katz) of the same crap we got from V1.

Personally, having hiked several of the "Southwest Trails," I hope they don't go away because of all this brouhaha.

Personally, having hiked several of the "Southwest Trails," I hope they don't go away because of all this brouhaha.

My thoughts EXACTLY! I think the trail system is one of the coolest things Portland has to offer.

I think it is interesting how people think that trespassing on other people's property is one of the coolest things Portland has to offer.

It isn't trespassing if there are easements through the property.

This all sounds like a bunch of sour grapes from Dorothy English type property owners who don't like steps on their property (despite easements).

PJB-

Did you miss the part about liability? Liability imposed on unsuspecting homeowners by an unauthorized third party breaking the law by building structures without the required permits? See the nice picture up there? I mean, do you get it at all? I'm not sure if you understand the Dorothy English story either if you're making a comparison here, but you might want to actually read the Oregonian reference above before making such ill-informed comments. Where is trespassing an issue?

LexusL.... The beginnings of Portland's neighborhood groups was under Terry Schrunk, but don't let facts get in the way of your ideology.

PJB, there is a utility easement. A right for a utility to run an electrical line or lay a pipe.

That *is* trespassing if you tromp across someone's yard. You can lay a pipe or string a wire. You can't walk across it.

I like the trail system in Portland as well, but friggin' a, let's follow the law! You are the City. It's your damn code!

The liability issue, while certainly something to legislate and alter, seems largely a straw-man for a (literal) NIMBY attack.

My understanding of utility easements is such:

"Utility Easement. Any easement within the public right-of-way designated on a subdivision plat or partition map as a utility easement, public utility easement or “P.U.E.” or any easement granted to or owned by the city and acquired, established, dedicated or devoted for public utility purposes not inconsistent with the telecommunications facilities."

The operative phrase here is "public right of way".

Here is an interesting photo diary of a similar issue in SF:

http://bit.ly/3VftVH

The fact of the matter is that "utility easements" are typically public rights of way. As such, the city is certainly within its legal bounds to, for example, build actual roads on those locations.

Surely the neighbors would prefer a few railroad ties instead of roads?

Ha ha ha! The operative words are not right of way, the operative word is "for". The right to cross another's property is only for the stated purpose. Chatting on your cell phone while you hike across my yard does not make you a telecomunications facility.

Thanks Concordbridge, I was gonna point that out too. I would have expanded it a little though and said the operative words are "acquired, established, dedicated or devoted for public utility purposes not inconsistent with the telecommunications facilities."

I guess you could argue that "public utility purposes" might include trails and stairs, but I really doubt it. I think it's meant for public utilities, not for public utilization. And, I could be wrong, but I doubt the home owner is held liable if a guy working on the public utility gets hurt on the homeowner's easement, right?

I think we have a misunderstanding about the word "utility". The easements presumably came into existence in the 1800s, and were meant for roads (or, implicitly, for other public purposes such as electricity lines). For any number of reasons, the roads weren't built.

"I think we have a misunderstanding about the word "utility"."

Apparently you have a misunderstanding of the problem. Obfuscate away. the fact remains that a sub group of SWNI acted in direct violation of their agreement with the City in the Urban Trails Plan of 2000 in building structures without abutting property owners' permission and without the required permits. City code specifically places the liability on the abutting property owners. How are these actions justifiable in your point of view?

If the construction is negligent, I would think the individuals who built the trail also bear some liability. Not to mention the leaders of that group.

PJB, You can argument easements until you're blue in the face. The issue here is LIABILITY, spelled L-A-W-S-U-I-T.

The stairs in the picture (above) are an atrocity. They are built by SWNI without permission from anyone, they blantantly violate all possible building standards, and the city is trying to pawn off liability to the property owners? No way. That will never fly. The city, SWNI, and the individuals who build these structures are responsible for this debacle.

Do you have any idea who commonly uses these trails? Groups of elderly people, 70+ years, go on organized walks on these trails all the time. Would you like your grandmother to fall down those stairs? Note the steepness, uneveness, lack of handrail, and it sure looks like a hard landing if you slip. And this is just one example of dangerous stairs constructed by SWNI in SW Pdx. The City should inspect all these trails and bring them to code immediately.

PJB, "utility" means exactly what it sounds like.

Even after reading the article, I'm confused about if we're really talking about private land with an easement across it, or if the land is actually owned by the city, and is just adjacent to private property. It isn't totally clear.

My first reading was that it is city land adjacent to private property, but they're claiming that the private owner is responsible in the same way as they're responsible for the sidewalk in front of their house.

Anyone walking across a utility easement on my property would get a run-in with my baseball bat.

In Portland, you own the land all the way out to the middle of the street in front of your property. The public has a right of way over the street and sidewalk part, but if that right of way is abandoned, the property's all yours. Which happens with some frequency -- street vacation is not all that uncommon.

Look what Lee "Scribbles" Perlman wrote about Don Baack back in 2005. The city has known about Baack/SWNI's unlawful trails and antics for over 4 years, and PDOT adimts that it just looks the other way. And they want to make property owners liable for the city's dereliction of duty? Try selling that one to a jury. What a crock!

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpid=315&show=archivedetails&ArchiveID=1364543&om=1

Don Baak is one of the good guys. It's no surprise, though, that someone like him who takes charge and gets things done rubs the do-nothing chicken-littles the wrong way.

His crew builds good trails fast and cheap. A while back, the city it would cost a million dollars and take ten years to build a certain foot bridge, and they got it done in a weekend with fifty bucks. If this man were mayor, there would be no more potholes, we'd get new bridges within a month, taxes would decrease by 90%, and every resident would get a check for ten grand each Christmas. Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but you get the point.

The city knows about everything SW Trails do, and now they're pulling this slimy it's-not-our-responsibility bit when a little controversy flares up. The fact is, the vast silent majority appreciates these trails, which are built in public rights-of-way, where anyone can walk right now, not utility easements. If the adjacent owners want to keep people out, they should try to get the ROW vacated, and start paying taxes on the land.

Put up or shut up.

Fark ran this under the headline "When the irresistible force of "think of the children" meets the unmovable object of "not in my backyard"

http://www.nj.com/news/local/index.ssf/2009/11/madison_sidewalks_project_stir.html

It's ironic that the street shown in the photo above actually has a length of sidewalk about 200 feet down the road to the right. People are diverted from using the sidewalk by the route above.

There are few sidewalks on these streets locally because they are mostly dead end streets servicing a few to several houses. Cruise around on Portlandmaps or Google Earth. There's little traffic. But "It's for the kids" just sounds so right.

What happens when one of the kids running down the wet creosote ties slips and cracks his skull open? I lose my house. Is this really that hard to comprehend?

I love my kids, by the way. And my neighbors' kids, too. They understand much better than some adults from outside this community.