by Matt Hughes
J-E News Editor
Once again the Webster County Fiscal Court was talking about the tree on Hester Winstead Road on Monday.
The tree first became an issue in June, when the county was looking at paving the Slaughters area road. The tree, which is estimated to be a couple of hundred years old, grows right up to the pavement in the center of a 90 degree corner.
The court had received numerous reports that farm equipment could not fit down the road, and that the tree was a safety hazard because of both dead limbs and it’s location in the corner.
Former Daviess County Judge Executive Reid Haire who happened to be visiting the court during the discussion in June said that he had faced the same issue several times. He stressed to the court that if the tree was indeed a liability, the county could be held responsible if an accident was to happen there.
After trimming the dead limbs, the court voted in September that the tree was still not only a hazard, but a liability to the county and needed to be cut.
In October, property owner Roger Winstead, along with his attorney, Jimmy Gentry, appeared before the court in a last minute effort to save the tree. Gentry argued that overtime the road had been shifted further onto Winstead’s property than it was supposed to be and was actually outside the county’s right of way. He also told the court that a family of Red-Tailed Hawks, a federally protected species, nested in the tree making the tree a protected habitat that could not be cut.
The court voted to reverse their decision to cut the tree until they could look into the matter further.
In early November the court received word that if there were Red-Tailed Hawks in the area, there was no sign of a nest, meaning the tree was not protected by federal law.
On Monday, Barry Pettus, the owner of the property across the road from Winstead was at the court meeting with his family.
“The road used to be down in a gully,” said Pettus. “During the winter you couldn’t get up the hill to our house. So my dad moved the road further over onto our property. Our family actually gave up part of our farm land to make sure we could get home.
“Our farm has been in our family since before the Civil War,” Pettus continue. “My dad says that the original property line is actually on the other side of the road where (Mr. Winstead)’s fence line is located.”
Pettus reported that he had documentation on the farm going back nearly as long as his family had owned it, and he suggested that it might help the matter if he were to get his own property surveyed.
“We still plan to survey the road,” said Judge Townsend. “I think your idea of surveying your own property is a good one.”
“I don’t care to let the county take whatever property is needed to make sure there is a good road there for the people who live there,” Pettus told the court. “You will have no problem from my family.”
Pettus also said that he currently planted crops right up to the road, but if the county showed him where the right-of-way actually lay, he would put up fence posts and sow grass on the county’s part.
County Attorney Clint Prow reported that he was still working on researching how they would have to determine the proper right-of-way.
“Any road that’s been incorporated since 2004, the right-of-way is clearly 15 feet from the center of the road,” he said. “This road has been there much longer than that.”
Prow said that the older law was a lot less clear on the specific measurements, but did state that the right-of-way included the shoulder and ditch on both sides of the road.
Magistrate Jerry “Poogie” Brown pointed out that one side of the road couldn’t be ditched because the tree was standing there.
Prow said that once he can determine which course the county needs to take, he will meet with surveyor Keith Whitledge to tell him what they need to know.
Until then the tree will continue to stand as it has for centuries.
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