The changes that have come to Garden City have improved/frustrated the people who live and come to play there. New laws on land use, sewer, water, fire, and safety have all caused uproars through the years.
I live on 150 So. and the use of the road has increased by 100% plus. But, I also understand that the lake is for everyone and there needs to be access.
The state helped the City clean and pave the road to the lake. The City runs a bus in the summer for visitors who want to get to the beach. It has helped with the traffic and dust so much.
Much criticism has been directed at the Garden City Mayor and Town Council over the years when people have chosen to voice their feelings about issues which affect them-which is an American right.
When a mayor allowed Shore Estates to gate the access to the lake at Shore Estates, I felt at the time that it was not right and told him that these accesses would be important later as the population increased in our area. He chuckled and told me that the accesses would never be used and the Shore Estates people wanted to protect their vacation/year round homes.
I have read the Shore Estate plat and it states that the accesses were to open to the public for perpetuity-not just for the adjoining land owner’s use. When we came to Bear Lake in 1968, we had friends-Larry & Sharon Harris whom we visited a lot at Shore Estates. They knew the accesses were open to the public. Over time the Shore Estate owners have wanted to keep people from walking on “their” public accesses.
We lived in Chicago and there were public walking lanes to the lake. We visited Honolulu and there were public walkways to the ocean. The Legacy Development granted the City a walking path to the lake.
In the Pickleville plat there were walking lanes to the lake. Homeowners did not want people walking past their homes, but the City began cleaning and signing those areas for use of the public.
Yes, Judge Wilmore said the gates could go back up, but I believe he did not understand the issue that his decision will affect all public roads on plats that anyone then can say this was a decision made by a Judge about public access and can be changed at will. This ruling will also reflect on the historical roads that people have tried to fence over the years. The state ruled that the historical roads remain open.
This part is long, but should be refuted.
“Other evidence strongly supports a finding that neither the (homeowners) nor (the town) ever intended or believed the driveways to be public streets. If a city owns public city streets for 50 years, upon which many of its families reside, it will typically pave or improve the streets in some way, plow the snow from them or name them,” Willmore wrote in his decision. (Only one homeowner lived on these 5 streets year round for the last 50 years-we have another street in Pickleville where one homeowner lives and we don’t plow for him and he is 94. Naming the streets should have been done on the plat-only no one thought about that detail 50 years ago. Many of our streets were not paved as the City did not have much money to do so until the late 90’s, even then it was on a limited basis. Several streets are not paved even now. The road to the Negus Ranch has been there over 100 years and is still not paved).
“A city would not allow public city streets to be chained off or gated by private citizens for any length of time, much less for decades. (The town) seems to confuse maintaining sewer and water lines under the driveways with maintaining the driveways themselves as owners would … by all accounts, (the town has) never exercised control over these driveways like owners until the events underlying this cause of action.”
After noting that the homeowners could be harmed from losing their privacy from the loss of gates, Willmore went on to write that “if anything, the public’s interest lies in obtaining unrestricted use of these driveways at the expense of these (homeowners).”
(The use of the access roads was to be walking lanes only to protect the homeowners).
Lastly, the homeowners have never paid taxes for “their” driveways. I mow and remove snow on the State Highway ROW. I’d like to not have to pay taxes and then get reimbursed for eminent domain. All of the City should share in what they will get if this continues to go to eminent domain.
Another thought: The Foundation of Bear Lake is working towards purchasing land for another park, but that is years in the making and perhaps all of the private lands will be gone and the Foundation will just keep helping with bike path around the lake.
Seriously, I wish for this New Year a plan of peace and goodwill-especially at Bear Lake.
Bess Huefner
