Schawana pastor learns he owns part of street
Alfredo Gutiérrez has learned he owns part of A Street. The street was supposed to run in a straight line along the power poles on the right, but it doesn’t. Instead, it cuts into his property, for which the line runs from the post at the gate to the post in the distance
SCHAWANA — Alfredo Gutiérrez of Schawana has been finding that even the faith of a pastor can be tested by things that seem unfair.
And Gutiérrez, the pastor of the lone church in Schawana-Mattawa, has been learning that things aren’t always as they seem. He owns the property he bought recently, but he doesn’t control all of it.
That’s tough on a man whom most people would say does things right. He’s a community leader through his church. He’s a community leader through his – and his wife’s – volunteering with Grant County Fire District No. 10. And he is the board president of the water system that serves the unincorporated city.
All of that gets Gutiérrez nothing in his quest to control all of the property he purchased. Like many others, he has learned that part of his property has become a public right-of-way because of its long-standing customary use as a road.
“It’s like that for many property owners in probably all 39 counties,” Public Works Director Jeff Tincher said.
When Gutiérrez bought the property adjacent to his church on the north edge of town, he was not aware he was also buying part of A Street. He didn’t notice it on the property map or description.
Gutiérrez came to know this after he built a chain link fence along the street to keep dogs and intruders out. In less than four years, it has been hit by cars four times. There was the initial cost of the fence. Add the cost of four repair jobs.
The problem is a curve on A Street that runs into the property. Some cars take it at too high a rate of speed, leave the roadway and strike the fence. Gutiérrez didn’t report the first two crashes, but he did the third and fourth, hoping to get some speed laws enforced.
That left Gutiérrez wondering: “Who enforces the laws here? Nobody. We don’t matter.”
It’s the same lament heard in Beverly, Mattawa, Desert Aire and Royal. Grant is a huge county with a small sheriff’s department.
In discussions with the county, which he admitted raised his ire, Gutiérrez came to learn that, no matter how it happened, he doesn’t control the part of his property that is A Street.
Tincher explained this in letters to Gutiérrez in August, 2013 and March, 2016. Tincher admitted that the street takes up a piece of the property that is approximately 12 feet by 125 feet.
However, Tincher pointed out, there is a state law (RCW 36.75.070) that makes it all okay. It makes a road “worked” by a county seven years or more a county road.
Tincher pointed to this passage in the law: All public highways in the state, outside incorporated cities and towns and not designated as state highways, which have been used as public highways for a period of not less than seven years, where they have been worked and kept up at the expense of the public are county roads.
“Grant County has a prescriptive right of way claim to this location based on the 25-plus years of road maintenance done at this location,” Tincher said. “A prescriptive right of way claim is just the right to have the county road there and not a change in ownership.”
Gutiérrez understands what this means, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. He believes it would be fair for the county to buy that part of his property or redo the street in such a way to remove it from his property.
The county has no reason to make the purchase, Tincher said. And it has no reason to reroute the street. There is that state law.
But the county wants to be understanding. It has tried to help by putting up reflector roadway edge markers to guide motorists.
“A lot of good that will do,” Gutierrez said. “Three of the crashes were in daytime.”
Gutiérrez has consulted with an attorney and is considering a challenge to the county’s claim in court.