9.d 1 Designation of fence viewer{
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Staff Report
Date of Meeting: June 20, 2017
To: City Council
From: Neil Soltis, Administrator
Re: Designation fence viewer
Background: I received an inquiry from a resident whose property is partially in Scandia and
partially in Franconia Township who is having a dispute with the neighbor regarding a partition
fence. Minnesota's partition fence law, Minn. Stat., Ch. 344, requires land owners to share in the
cost of building partition fences with the owners of neighboring properties. Chapter 344 is based on
a common law principle that land owners should build fences to restrain livestock from freely
ranging onto neighboring properties and across the state. Under Chapter 344, if a property owner
wishes to construct a partition fence and the owner of the neighboring property refuses to share in
the cost of building it, the owner wanting to build the fence may petition the "fence viewers" to
render a decision assigning each owner a share of the cost and setting a construction deadline. §
344.01 defines "fence viewers" to be supervisors in their respective towns, city council members in
their respective wards, commissioners of public works in cities having a commission form of
government, and city trustees in statutory cities are fence viewers be city council members.
I advised the property owner to petition the Council and to the Franconia Township Board to each
appoint a fence viewer to resolve the dispute. In anticipation of that and for future reference the
Council should take action to appoint one of its members as Scandia's fence viewer.
Issue:
Which Council members should be appointed as fence viewers?
What amount should be set for compensation as the fence viewer?
Should a security amount be set to ensure payment of cost incurred?
Fiscal Impact: The following is an excerpt from MN Statutes regarding the compensation of fence
viewers. The language refers to a town board but presumably the Council could establish a bond or
security amount.
344.18 COMPENSATION OF VIEWERS. Fence viewers must be paid for their services by the
person employing them. The town board may by resolution require the person employing
the fence viewers to post a bond or other security acceptable to the board for the total
estimated costs before the viewing takes place. The total estimated costs may include the
cost of professional and other services, hearing costs, administrative costs, recording costs,
and other costs and expenses which the town may incur in connection with the viewing.