Posted on 01/30/2002 2:24:58 AM PST by brityank
After 75 Years, Still No Relief In Sight!
(The U.S. Forest Service must end the cover-up.)By Donald R. Soeken, Ph.D: 01.30.02
GAP MILLS, W. VA.-The French philosopher Albert Camus probably said it best:
"There comes a time in every man's life when to remain silent is to lie."At the tender age of 60, I can no longer remain silent about the U.S. Government's incredible - and continuing - denial of my rights as a property owner in the great state of West Virginia. Since 1975, when I purchased more than 300 acres of forest land in Monroe County, not far from the Virginia border, I have been embroiled in a surveying dispute with the U.S. Forest Service . . . a dispute that has left me without road access to my own acreage (the formal term is "land-locked") for nearly three decades.
As the following incontrovertible facts will make clear, my rights as a property owner (and no rights are more "sacred," according to Thomas Jefferson) have been violated again and again by government bureaucrats who seem more intent on covering up their original surveying errors than on granting me due process and the right to manage my own land. Here's how the astonishing federal mix-up at Gap Mills took place, step by step:
As a career federal employee for the U.S. Public Health Service, I invested a portion of my income in a parcel of land near the intersection of Monroe, Greenbrier and Allegheny Counties, starting back in 1975.
Later scrutiny of the history of this parcel showed that the deed-holders had held 315 acres prior to 1936 - at which point a major nearby landowner, the West Virginia Hardwood Company, went bankrupt and sold their entire 15,0000-acre holding to the United States Government.
While supervising this transaction, the bankruptcy court ordered a survey of the affected land parcel. According to undisputed state and federal records, that survey (performed by a "Mr. Sheldon") included a major error . . . a faulty calculation in which an out-of-state surveyor accidentally mis-surveyed a key landmark (Fletcher's Knob) and thus drew a key line to the wrong knob. Mr. Sheldon wrote Fletcher's Knob on his survey at the line that he had drawn to the wrong knob. He believed, as did all of the prior surveys that Fletcher's Knob was the corner of the state line. He was, however, mistaken about his placement of the knob because he was at the wrong mountain peak. By missing the location of Fletcher's Knob, the survey created an "overlap" on the affected land parcel - an overlap, which had not existed prior to the Sheldon survey. (Previous surveys done by Mr. Vawter, dating back to the Civil War had placed the two parcels contiguously, so that they fitted together like two neatly aligned puzzle pieces.)
Based on the surveyor's error, the U.S. Forest Service then drew the West Virginia/Virginia State Line incorrectly, causing an overlap - a further complicating step. One result of this further error was that the U. S. Government, in a condemnation proceeding involving the 226 acres, then used faulty lines. (In fact, the condemnation took place at the Federal Court in Lynchburg, Virginia, in the wrong state - and was actually invalid, legally, because the court that made this ruling did not have jurisdiction over the West Virginia real estate.)
Because of that bureaucratic snafu, 226 of the acres I would later buy in 1975 were declared part of the 15,000-acre parcel the U.S. Government had purchased. In order to "clear the title," the government condemned the land, paid the lumber company for the 226 acres, and then attached them to the 15,000-acre parcel, which then became the George Washington National Forest.
That money went to the lumber company's creditors . . . while the then-owners of my property received nothing at all. A Violation Of The U.S. Constitution?
The net effect of these endlessly compounded errors was to remove the "road frontage" from my parcel - thus leaving me "land-locked" and essentially deprived of the use of my own property. As any good Constitutional lawyer will tell you, it is a violation of the United States Constitution to take a citizen's land without paying him or her for it. It is also illegal for the government to harm a landowner by manipulating nearby real estate in such a manner that the landowner becomes land-locked. How valid is my contention that the "surveying error" actually changed the state line incorrectly, causing an overlap? The U.S. Forest Service's own Office of General Counsel admitted as much on Feb. 24, 1978, in a letter to my attorney, as follows:
"The documentation submitted by you reflects that the subject tract of land, although now located in West Virginia, was located in Virginia at the time the United States of America acquired title to the subject tract of land."
Obviously, the Office of General Counsel ignored the Sheldon bankruptcy survey error.
Seeking An Open And Fair Inquiry - And Nothing Else
Although the history of the legal skirmishing over the land parcel in question is tangled and complex, the bottom line remains easy to understand:
The U.S. government essentially admits that it made a major error in the 1936 survey, causing an overlap - an error which it then did its best to cover up. The owners of the affected land parcel (including this one) have now been attempting - for more than three-quarters of a century - to obtain justice from a federal government that does not seem interested in honoring its own Constitution. Albert Camus was right. There are times when "remaining silent" becomes a form of lying . . . and when concerned citizens must speak out against the injustices they have received at the hands of government. The U.S. Forest Service must end the cover-up and reassure every property owner in West Virginia that injustices of this kind will not be allowed to continue in our fair state! Is such honesty really too much to ask from the federal government of the greatest nation on earth? I don't think so.
Donald R. Soeken, Ph.D., is the founder and director of Integrity International, a non-profit organization that counsels whistleblowers who speak out against fraud, waste and abuse in government and business.
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Any sympathy I might have had for this person went out the window as soon as I read this. Funny how the Federal government only became a problem AFTER this guy lived off the taxpayers for 35 years.
Why did this PHD, who has lived off of the Federal Teats for his adult life buy this property? Why did he buy it with a screwed up title? Too many questions here for any concern for him?
Bureaucrats are thieves of either your time or your treasure; they frequently steal both.
He was a cheapskate and didn't get title insurance. I have seen purchases fall through when the title company takes a look. And if the insurance company screws up... Well that's why they call it insurance.
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