NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Reno County commission chair Daniel Friesen was part of a group that went out to view a fence Thursday to settle a dispute between neighbors on North Mayfield Road near Hutchinson.
"Commissioner Hirst and I went," Friesen said. "We appointed Public Works Director Don Brittain to be the third. It's an interesting process, it dates back, I think, over a century. The statute is very old and it's not used terribly often."
Lauren and Wayne Sill of 2319 North Mayfield Road requested the fence viewing to resolve a boundary dispute with adjacent neighbors Christopher and Nicole Schroeder at 2509 North Mayfield Road.
All that the group doing the fence viewing could resolve is the fence location and any cost sharing. That wasn't all of the disagreement between the neighbors, so the group tried to let them talk before filing anything formal.
"We started with what we could work through and then paused," Friesen said. "We then tried to seek a resolution on all the issues just amongst the parties and kind of encourage them to resolve those. We gave the parties an idea of what we thought, as far as, there were basically two different fence lines. One fence line likely needed to be replaced. Another fence line was being installed for the first time. There are different facts on both fence lines. We kind of started to lay out where the fence viewers felt like we were going to rule on the issue. It's an interesting situation, because it's one of the few things I've seen where you can't appeal it to court."
After about an hour, the landowners shook hands and made a private deal, so the county is holding off on an official ruling at this point.
"We have all the information we need to make one, if they don't kind of put on paper what was agreed to out there," Friesen said. "As far as what everybody understood, the parties came to a amicable resolution on site and are going to paper that out. I appreciate County Counselor Patrick Hoffman's work. He's went a little above and beyond and put together a little settlement agreement amongst the parties."
Hutch Post will be asking Hoffman for a copy of that agreement once it is properly filed.