AUBURN – Nemaha County Commissioner Bryan Mellage broached the subject Wednesday of enforcing state laws that require landowners to mow and keep road right-of-ways clear of vision-obstructing trees.
After farmer Allan Adams questioned the drivability of roads in the Peru area, Mellage asked for his opinion about a state law the requires landowners to take care of the roadside.
Adams said he wishes the county would enforce the law.
Adams: “I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars mowing all our roadsides and I drive down the road and see people that don’t and five years from now the county will be in there spending our taxpayers’ money cleaning up those trees that they should have took care of.”
The county attorney can take action to bill a landowner if the county has to clear trees from a ditch.
Bohling: “If do it for the neighbor and didn’t charge him and now you’re going to charge them, it doesn’t work.”
Bohling said it is helpful that when a ditch is cleared, the landowner gives permission to re-shape it so that is can be mowed.
The county has been putting an explanation of the road ditch policy in with tax notices, but Commissioner Bob Hutton said the message may not be getting through.
Hutton: “A lot of these guys who are farming, they are cash renting this ground and the landlords are gone out of the county and the ones that are renting the ground, they’re not going to take the trees out.”
Adams suggested enforcing the policy and Mellage said he is hoping the county will take his advise.
