Upset the Mayor

Just another day in Paradise.

Currently doing a survey for a city. They need to know the correct location of the alley running through a certain block. No big deal.

Start researching and find enough survey data for that block and three adjoiners. Things are looking good. Drive up to one end of the "alley" and see a maximum of about three feet of unused space in a strip where the 15-foot wide alley should be. Fences, buildings, utilities, trees, etc. Uh oh, somebody will not be happy. Get a call from the city clerk. Hopes I can wrap this up soon as the mayor is very interested in the results. Hmmmmm?

Crew finds numerous bars of varying dimensions in enough key locations to make the final decision seem easy. Check it out on the computer. Most everything fits pretty darn well. I'd like to have a bit more info, though. I go out yesterday and find three more existing bars where the crew could not access on the first trip. Add these. Things are fitting together very well. Just need to break the bad news to the client.

Meet today with the City Clerk, Mayor and City Superintendent. Show them a 90 percent complete plat and explain I need more guidance on how many corners they want marked along the alley. Then we head out to the block in question to look at the found bars. I had intentionally not left flags or other evidence prior to this as I knew the neighborhood would be rather unhappy with the results. I walk up to bar number one, reveal and flag it. The Mayor says, "So this is the west side of the alley?" I say "No." as I walk fifteen feet west to reveal and flag bar number 2 at the west side of the alley. "No way can that be right.", says the Mayor. It all went down hill from there as I flagged other bars. We had to tape between them to prove they were at the correct distances apart as the clients became more and more unhappy with the results.

Turns out we were hired to do a survey because the Mayor lives in that block and he wanted to rock the alley so he could build a garage in his backyard. Guess what. Everyone on his side of the block has been occupying the alley as their backyards. A sewer line runs about two feet inside the private owners properties on the east half of the block. Several large trees, 200 feet of chain link fence and a large number of landscaping trees and bushes will have to go, along with the moving of three good-sized sheds of which two belong to the Mayor. Add removal of a large satelite dish and a big concrete slab, two gardens and moving a power pole and pedestal about three feet to the east. Then comes the obvious question, "Do we also actually build one block of street along the south end of the block as none has ever been constructed in that right-of-way?"

Ain't this work really fun sometimes?