Defendant Bradley P. Hancock, participating in PLWC's known evil agenda,
reconfigured and repositioned onlv the Watkins' Lot 29
Got to love it.
Hell hath no fury like some guy with both righteous indignation and access to a website
http://personalliberty.com/dysfunctional-surveying-system-in-idaho/
http://personalliberty.com/a-question-of-ethics/
http://personalliberty.com/idaho-property-owners-fighting-neighbors-encroachment/
http://personalliberty.com/recommendations-to-the-idaho-board-of-professional-land-surveyors/
http://personalliberty.com/idaho-board-charges-surveyor-chad-erickson/
I find the percentage of truth in the written word to be roughly inversely proportional to the number of words required to express the opinion.
Steve
makerofmaps, post: 363468, member: 9079 wrote: Got to love it.
Thought y'all would get a kick out of this case.
https://caseinfo.aoc.arkansas.gov/cconnect/PROD/public/ck_public_qry_doct.cp_dktrpt_frames?backto=P&case_id=60CV-15-4085&begin_date=&end_date=&apos ;">60CV-15-4085 CONNIE WATKINS ET AL V ARK AGRICULTURE DEPT ET AL
https://contexte.aoc.arkansas.gov/imaging/IMAGES/DMS/CK_Image.Present2?DMS_ID=8H6PRYJOBR073KQDPLJ3SNNWIWO8KP&apos ;">PETITION AND COMPLAINT (PART 1)
DDSM:beer:
Tommy Young, post: 363467, member: 703 wrote: The truth hurts.
So what does your statement mean? Either you are a big fan of someone who continuously pees on your profession; you don't thinks that libel is a serious issue; or you know a lot of fraudulent surveyors... What is the truth.
I doubt that Jeffery Lucas has ever been surveying, much less in all fifty states. He does nothing for me. I wish he could write about something else than survey bashing. He is a detriment to the profession and if he can't stop writing about his one topic (the math slappers) he should just stop writing altogether.
Historic boundaries and conservation efforts.
^exactly^
not my real name, post: 363482, member: 8199 wrote: So what does your statement mean? Either you are a big fan of someone who continuously pees on your profession; you don't thinks that libel is a serious issue; or you know a lot of fraudulent surveyors... What is the truth.
I doubt that Jeffery Lucas has ever been surveying, much less in all fifty states. He does nothing for me. I wish he could write about something else than survey bashing. He is a detriment to the profession and if he can't stop writing about his one topic (the math slappers) he should just stop writing altogether.
I'm sure Jesus "pee'd" on the Pharisees, but that certainly didn't mean he was wrong.
There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of surveyors out there practicing that have no concept of property rights. They slap a deed on the ground and completely ignore every other indication of boundary lines. That's not surveying and shouldn't be called such. Someone needs to call these people out. If they are unconfortable being lumped in with jacklegs, maybe they need to look in the mirror.
Here is an article possibly related to the original article in the 1st post:
http://www.usobserver.com/archive/nov-15/idaho-charges-erickson.htm
Tommy Young, post: 363513, member: 703 wrote: I'm sure Jesus "pee'd" on the Pharisees, but that certainly didn't mean he was wrong.
There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of surveyors out there practicing that have no concept of property rights. They slap a deed on the ground and completely ignore every other indication of boundary lines. That's not surveying and shouldn't be called such. Someone needs to call these people out. If they are unconfortable being lumped in with jacklegs, maybe they need to look in the mirror.
true, to a point
off topic kinda... Dave Karoly recently wrote an excellent paper on the subject. I have a copy, but he should share it if he wants.
bottom line>>> People (Surveyors) need to understand what the heck they are doing and What They Are Supposed To Be Doing.
This all begs the question. Where is the county surveyor and the records and maintenance of the PLSS. No mention in the articles. Do they have a county surveyors office and have they had one all along taking care of the PLSS?
I also don't think the author understands that surveyors are not advocates for clients like attorneys. In my view being an advocate for one side or the other would be the violation.
Another thing is the idea that surveyors can steal land or fix (adjudicate) boundaries. Surveyors don't have any authority to settle or establish boundaries. That's for the landowners. Landowners can hire a surveyor for there opinion. If a surveyors monumented opinion is accepted by landowners over time that fixes the boundary but by the landowners adopting the surveyors work not by some surveyors adjudication.
From what's written I really can't make any sense out of it or evaluate any given facts other than maybe the original corner was found. It's just a bunch of one line is this way from the other and another steals this much land. Then there is one hundred years of fraud, and all this cost to try and find what wasn't kept up by the county or the landowners. Just keep hiring and firing surveyors and attorneys till you get one that gives the answer you want.
My guess is there is more under the hood with the relationships with the neighbors and the willingness to litigate than the author reveals. Spend all that money and then blame the "gunslinger you hired" that didn't do what you expected.
Now purposely upsetting boundary lines to create work for surveyors, That one is just clear out of reality, I've never heard of that before, unbelievable!!
LRDay, post: 363558, member: 571 wrote: than the author reveals
...than the author reveals Knows... fixed it
he is clueless, trolling for page hits... because he was starving to death trying to "survey" he decided to be an "author"
just my not so humble opinion
PS: 🙂
correction, he does not profess to be a surveyor or have any legal background at all.
Peter Ehlert, post: 363564, member: 60 wrote: ...than the author
revealsKnows... fixed ithe is clueless, trolling for page hits... because he was starving to death trying to "survey" he decided to be an "author"
just my not so humble opinion
PS: 🙂
correction, he does not profess to be a surveyor or have any legal background at all.
I certainly hope this author is NOT a surveyor!!! I don't see any indications this person is a surveyor, just doesn't understand some basic legal principles. I do see a lot of lay attitude about what we do there. Even the stuff he says he got from surveyors is twisted.
What a piece of comedy, lies, 1/2 truths, and fabrication! Pretty funny though... though a little truth in it.
"There is a time and a season for all things"
N
LRDay, post: 363558, member: 571 wrote: This all begs the question. Where is the county surveyor and the records and maintenance of the PLSS. No mention in the articles. Do they have a county surveyors office and have they had one all along taking care of the PLSS?
I also don't think the author understands that surveyors are not advocates for clients like attorneys. In my view being an advocate for one side or the other would be the violation.
Another thing is the idea that surveyors can steal land or fix (adjudicate) boundaries. Surveyors don't have any authority to settle or establish boundaries. That's for the landowners. Landowners can hire a surveyor for there opinion. If a surveyors monumented opinion is accepted by landowners over time that fixes the boundary but by the landowners adopting the surveyors work not by some surveyors adjudication.
From what's written I really can't make any sense out of it or evaluate any given facts other than maybe the original corner was found. It's just a bunch of one line is this way from the other and another steals this much land. Then there is one hundred years of fraud, and all this cost to try and find what wasn't kept up by the county or the landowners. Just keep hiring and firing surveyors and attorneys till you get one that gives the answer you want.
My guess is there is more under the hood with the relationships with the neighbors and the willingness to litigate than the author reveals. Spend all that money and then blame the "gunslinger you hired" that didn't do what you expected.
Now purposely upsetting boundary lines to create work for surveyors, That one is just clear out of reality, I've never heard of that before, unbelievable!!
He was able to cite Jeff Lucas. But you're right, he is talking like so many typical non-surveyors who think what we do is menial and their knowledge is so much superior (either because they had math above trigonometry, or their an engineer, or they had law 101 classes). We occasionally have one of these guys wander in here, and start talking about doing their own survey, and how they know everything but just have one question (and the nature of the question makes it quite apparent that they don't have a clue).
How exactly this guy thinks that going out and staking a purposely false boundary is a scam that will make the surveyor money is way beyond me. A much simpler scam would be to slap some monuments in @ the fence corners without getting an instrument out and charging $2,000. Setting corners in obtuse places is more likely to get you sued.
Peter Ehlert, post: 363525, member: 60 wrote: true, to a point
off topic kinda... Dave Karoly recently wrote an excellent paper on the subject. I have a copy, but he should share it if he wants.
bottom line>>> People (Surveyors) need to understand what the heck they are doing and What They Are Supposed To Be Doing.
It should be available soon.
Idaho County Free Press
Defending principle despite the duress
Letter: Chad Erickson, Kamiah
http://www.idahocountyfreepress.com/news/2015/jun/17/defending-principle-despite-duress/
Section 24, T30N, R3E
Idaho County Free Press
These are personality, not survey, problems
Letter to the Editor: Chad Erickson, Kamiah
http://www.idahocountyfreepress.com/news/2016/jan/20/these-are-personality-not-survey-problems/
DDSM
Dan B. Robison, post: 363610, member: 34 wrote: Idaho County Free Press
Defending principle despite the duress
Letter: Chad Erickson, Kamiah
http://www.idahocountyfreepress.com/news/2015/jun/17/defending-principle-despite-duress/
Section 24, T30N, R3EIdaho County Free Press
These are personality, not survey, problems
Letter to the Editor: Chad Erickson, Kamiah
http://www.idahocountyfreepress.com/news/2016/jan/20/these-are-personality-not-survey-problems/DDSM
Back in the 1980s I was working for a small-time Civil Engineering firm. Virtually all of our work was land development oriented. Occasionally a Lot Survey would come in. I remember my boss getting off the phone with a potential client fighting over inches on a standard subdivision lot and saying, "those people don't need a Land Surveyor, they need a Psychiatrist."
Dan B. Robison, post: 363610, member: 34 wrote: Idaho County Free Press
Defending principle despite the duress
Letter: Chad Erickson, Kamiah
http://www.idahocountyfreepress.com/news/2015/jun/17/defending-principle-despite-duress/
Section 24, T30N, R3EIdaho County Free Press
These are personality, not survey, problems
Letter to the Editor: Chad Erickson, Kamiah
http://www.idahocountyfreepress.com/news/2016/jan/20/these-are-personality-not-survey-problems/DDSM
Thanks Dan, those are great links, it makes the root of the original article much clearer
BTW: read the comments in the original article, rather amusing, kinda scary.
The author has a tenuous grasp of an actual problem that does occur with alarming regularity in our profession (math stakeout), but takes a grain of truth and a couple facts or near-facts and then extrapolates a huge and intentional crime spree which is being perpetrated on an unsuspecting public through a nefarious scheme perpetrated by a once noble profession that has since been taken over by crooks who are in collusion with other crooks in government who are supposed to be regulating the rest of us.
If you read some of the stories that are in our trade magazines of late and read with a critical eye, you'll find that we're getting a lot of similar articles aimed our way designed to stir up outrage and consternation among surveyors over some manufactured conspiracy in exactly the same manner as this article is designed to stir up landowners.
IMO, many landowners should be upset, and the public concerned, but not for the outrageous reasons the anonymous author suggests, although he almost gets there at a couple points. Many of our professional societies and state boards have been pushing for educational requirements. In principle, that is or can be a good thing and of benefit to the public. But most of the formal post-secondary training and education for surveyors focuses on the use of math and the most modern technology the schools can obtain. All good stuff for the surveyor who will be involved with the construction and maintenance of our physical infrastructure and the GIS databases & mapping to keep track of it all.
But, as has been discussed here many times, that is all at the expense of the knowledge and skills which are necessary to properly perform surveys of existing boundaries. I sat in a session at our State Conference yesterday in which a supposed expert told us about how, when, and under what conditions we can use parol evidence in a boundary retracement. He had a rather (IMO) tenuous grasp of the concept that is pretty typical from a person who has studied the Robillard books (formerly, the Brown books) fairly well but has done very little or no direct study of the law. In fact, his only attributed source was the latest edition of Boundary Control & Legal Principles. If I heard correctly, he was recently hired as a professor for the geomatics engineering program at the largest such university program in this state. Overall, he was a good speaker and presented well, but if he doesn't educate himself on boundary principles beyond the Robillard books, we can expect several more years of incorrect boundary principles being drilled into students as being the inerrant and unbending truth.
Karoly is on the right track when he suggests that training for boundary surveyors would best come from law schools. I was just told of a law school in the northeast that has developed or is developing a Bachelor-level degree in law. It would not be considered adequate as an educational basis to practice law, but would be an excellent level of training for a paralegal or for those professions that should have a solid understanding of how the law works to be fully competent in their chosen areas of practice.
Most of the schools and state boards look to ABET for degree accreditation. ABET however seems to be firmly set on the idea that surveying is some subset of, or emerging specialty of engineering. Because the math typically required for boundary surveys is relatively simple compared to many other areas of survey practice, because the error tolerances are generally looser for boundary surveying than for other types of surveys (less rigorous field methods required), and because the books most commonly used to teach boundary surveying have reduced everything neatly down to italicized principles expressed in a sentence or two, making a nice list of the rules of surveying, there is the impression among the more engineering oriented surveyors that boundary is so simple that it doesn't require a rigorous curriculum to produce a competent surveyor. Perhaps it is time (past time, IMO) for the boards and the profession to look beyond ABET for accreditation.
The math & science based training which has minimized the historical and legal training aspects that are critical for the competent boundary surveyor have been so pervasive for so long, that it is ingrained in a significant portion, if not the majority of licensed surveyors that if one tries, professes, or advocates applying appropriate legal principles, along with a little historical knowledge of how humans might cooperate with each other to establish the limits of their personal territories between them, that person is accused of thinking he's a lawyer, or of appointing himself judge & jury by just deciding where he thinks the boundary should be. This mentality has become entrenched in many of our boards.
So the author's take that the licensing board won't go after the math stakeout surveyor might be accurate even his assignment of motivation is outrageously off base.
There is no vast conspiracy to drum up business by illegally stealing land (I assume he means by causing an illegal transfer of land to one's client for additional development space - ???). There is however vast ignorance which is often validated by the boards and which often results in the same injustice inflicted upon landowners.
The author is also correct that the legal profession looks to surveyors to be the experts to advise courts on boundary location matters. That reliance does not go so far as expecting us to argue the case by use of law (the attorney's job), but it goes an awful lot further than just testifying about what monuments you saw and what you measured. The court needs boundary experts to explain the significance of certain facts so that they can properly interpret those facts within the context of various legal doctrines. The courts also are required to follow the precedents within their jurisdiction. The judge likely will not know those precedents prior to the case. The lawyer, depending upon the length experience and areas of law comprising the bulk of their practice, may or may not be familiar with the case precedents which define and explain boundary principles as applied in the jurisdiction.
It's those precedents that define the type of evidence that may be used, and the circumstances which must be taken into account when determining, or discovering (probably a better word, as many seem to get hung up on "determine" as somehow being tantamount to making a pronouncement or fiat) the location of the originally intended and established boundary. If everyone in the process is looking to us to be the experts at locating boundaries, not merely the experts at making and reporting measurements, then it follows that it is of great importance that the boundary surveyor have a very good understanding of the principles as applied in their jurisdiction and the sources of those principles.
Although some of the principles presented may be explained accurately for your state, I can guarantee you, regardless of where you practice that neither Boundary Control & Legal Principles, nor Evidence & Procedures for Boundary Control, nor Clark, Skelton, or any similar text is the source of boundary principles for your jurisdiction. Each one of those is another surveyor's interpretation of those principles, and written for a general understanding of a nation-wide audience. To varying degrees, which might vary chapter to chapter, or by jurisdiction, is valuable in that context - to provide a general understanding to a very broad audience.
Most or all of us are familiar with the note that often appears prominently on the face of a site improvement plan that says "contractor to verify.... before beginning construction." Each of those books should have a similar note at the beginning of each chapter: "Surveyor to verify application of any principles discussed herein by comparison to current statutory and common law prior to application to specific circumstances."
Depending upon the article author's real intent (Is it to push for a real solution, or is it simply to foment unrest?), there may be an opportunity here to inform a portion of the public what the cause of the problem really is: Improper training and education, not avarice and conspiracy. If those who are affected by our work are aware of the lack of adequate training for one of our most common services, perhaps pressure might slowly start being applied to licensing boards through the public and through legislatures.
The author cites Jeff Lucas with this: "In reality, this is a deceptive trade practice and a violation of the Consumer Protection and anti-fraud laws of all 50 states according to surveyor and lawyer, Jeffery N. Lucas."
I've read a lot of what Jeff has written and have attended several of his presentations. I don't think I've ever heard him refer to staking out math as a deliberate deceptive trade practice or as an intentional act of fraud. I believe that the author is taking a good deal of literary license in this statement.