BEATRICE - Some township board officials say they want Gage County to have their back when they try to force uncooperative landowners to clear brush away from township roads. That was one of the topics at an annual Gage County Township Association meeting Thursday night, attended by members of the Gage County Board.


Under state law, property owners are required to make sure brush doesn’t cause an obstruction along township roads.


Townships send out letters to landowners who refuse to cooperate and one township board member would like to see a letter from the county attorney follow that.
Gage County Attorney Roger Harris says his office will follow up in those cases where township officials cannot get the cooperation of a property owner.
"One of the recommendations is always see if you can resolve these things amicably. Usually, by the time it hits my desk, everybody's got their heels dug in and there's no resolution and then it goes into a court situation. I'll still try to resolve it, because I can, in some situations, file it as a criminal nuisance."


One township official said his board has fought an uncooperative property owner repeatedly. He cited a case where trees present an obstruction ten feet from the center of a township road.


Harris said, "if you don't have a copy of the form letter and you need it, just give me a call and we'll get you a copy of that. It's got a copy of the relevant statutes and so they can look it over. The biggest problem seems to be...they just ignore you. The second stage of that is, you send that out to the county board and my office, and we do our timeline....we can follow that up."


Township officials say rural residents don’t like seeing their tax money pay for cleaning up an area where the landowner won’t comply. They also said there are problems that occur with obstructions along property where there are out-of-state owners.  A last resort is doing is the township doing the clean-up and then having a lien placed on the property to recover the cost.


The annual Gage County Township Association meeting held at the Veterans Club in Beatrice, was attended by representatives from 21 of 23 townships.