On The Road To Nowhere Rathdrum Mountain Property Owners, Officials At Impasse Over Gate To Keep Out Troublemakers
Fences may make for good neighbors, but a gate is making enemies out of Rathdrum city officials and some neighbors on Rathdrum Mountain.
“It’s a power play, said Susan Marie Smith, who lives near the gate. “They (the city) just want to show us who’s boss.”
For decades, hunters, hikers and wood-gatherers have driven up a dirt road on her father’s property to get to city- and state-owned land higher up the mountain.
“I never have closed it,” said 87-year-old Perley Smith. “Up until the last couple of years, people were kind of conscientious. So I didn’t try and stop anybody.”
But there were problems. People dumped trash. Teen partiers left smoldering campfires and used condoms. Poachers left animal viscera.
“Guts and heads and hooves,” said Susan Smith.
Rick and Lana Goodwin bought 24 acres above Perley Smith’s land three years ago. They quickly found out about the dirt-bikers, target-shooters and partiers.
“It’s pretty unnerving to be out gardening in your yard and you hear semiautomatics,” Lana Goodwin said. “People don’t know this is all private property.”
One of her dogs came home with a slug lodged in its scalp - someone shot it.
Rick Goodwin tried posting the road and the land, tacking up dozens of “No Trespassing” signs.
“They tear them all down,” he said. “They shoot at them.”
The final straw came when partiers pulled into the Goodwin’s front yard at 2 a.m. one night.
“We bought the place with the idea of having privacy,” Lana Goodwin said. “And now we have intrusion all the time.”
So the Goodwins asked to put a gate across the Smith’s road. Perley Smith, tired of picking up people’s trash, agreed. Everyone shook hands. The Goodwins put up a metal gate, and locked it.
That was about 18 months ago.
Enter the city of Rathdrum, which owns more than 700 acres of forest above the Smiths and Goodwins.
Earlier this year, city officials decided to log dead and diseased trees. They expect to earn $600,000. About $200,000 of that will pay for a new City Hall. The city last logged its land about 30 years ago, said Smith, and they used his road to do it.
But the city, like the hunters, hikers and teen partiers, doesn’t like the gate.
“It’s not that we want to be the bad guys,” said Mayor Tawnda Bromley. “It’s just that we need access.”
The Smiths and Goodwins say they’d be happy to open the gate every morning. Mayor Bromley says that’s impractical.
“Their hours are a little different from ours,” she said. She said there is an alternative road, through the Hidden Valley to the west, but it would mean sending logging trucks through a housing development.
At loggerheads with the families, Rathdrum a week ago filed a lawsuit against the Smiths and Goodwins. The city argues that it should be allowed to use the Smiths’ road forever, since it’s used the road for more than 10 years.
Even if the families agree to take out their gate, the city wants $750 in attorneys fees.
If they fight the lawsuit, the city wants a judge to declare that the city has an easement, or right of way, through the Smiths’ land. Alternatively, the city wants to condemn the land and force Perley Smith to sell the city his road.
“We’d really like to work it out,” said Bromley. “But it didn’t work out.”
City Attorney Rollie Watson couldn’t be reached for comment.
The obvious solution - simply giving the city a key to the gate’s lock - won’t work, say the two families.
Years ago, Perley Smith said, he gated the road and gave city officials one key.
That one key spawned copies like a Chinook salmon.
“Pretty soon all the councilmen had keys to the gate,” said Smith. “After that, all their friends had keys, too. Pretty soon half the town had keys.”
The families - who say they still haven’t been served with the legal papers - haven’t decided what to do next.
Perley Smith, however, says he doesn’t regret putting up this gate.
“Nowadays,” he said, “you don’t dare let anybody on your property.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo