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Property dispute blocks road to pier
County seeks injunction after Ridge woman put up fence at Fox Harbor
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by REID SILVERMAN
Minnie Russell, 75, put up a barrier across Dunbar Lane last month to stop people from using Fox Harbor pier, a public pier. She says she is only blocking half of the road's actual right of way in an ongoing property dispute with St. Mary's County government.
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The St. Mary's County commissioners are asking the circuit court to intervene to keep a public pier open to Fox Harbor in Ridge.
"There's a fence that someone put up" across Dunbar Lane, which leads to the pier, said Phil Rollins, director of St. Mary's recreation and parks.
The county commissioners have filed a request for an injunction to remove the plastic construction fence on the road, which neighbor Minnie Russell acknowledges putting there. She contends the road is on part of her property.
She said she is tired of being the gatekeeper to the pier, which she argued shouldn't be used as a taxpayer subsidy to a few watermen.
"We're asking for an injunction that the court to open it back up until it's solved," said Commission President Francis Jack Russell (D). "It's going to have to be heard in court."
The complaint filed last week with the court said the county commissioners allowed a local resident to build the Fox Harbor pier in September 1947 and that is has been open to the public and local watermen ever since.
Some watermen use the pier to haul in their catch and sometimes to sell their product right there off Wynne Road in Ridge.
"That is what the pier is for," said James Forrest, a Ridge waterman.
"My father, Louis K. Forrest, went before the commissioners to put a public pier in at his own expense and they gave him permission to do that," said James Forrest, 68, who has held an oystering license since he was 15.
The county's complaint states Minnie Russell asked the county commissioners in 1988 to withdraw their interest in the pier and the right of way, but the commissioners denied it that same year.
"Access to the pier has been there all these years" since the 1940s, Rollins said. "In the 18 years I've been here, Minnie and I have had several discussions about it. There's a dispute over boundaries."
Minnie Russell, 75, was born on the property where she still lives, next to the Fox Harbor pier. She has plats, surveys, deeds, old aerial photographs and correspondence with county government from over the years about the use of the road and the pier.
"I fought this pier since George Aud was president" of the county commissioners, she said. Aud served between 1978 and 1986.
Dunbar Lane was partially built on her family property, she said, and not on its property right of way, and yet she is still taxed for that sliver of land.
The county commissioners hold title to 2,834 square feet of land at the base of the pier, and in 2006, the county approached Russell to get a temporary easement on another 3,723 square feet of her property, which is the other portion of the road at the pier.
She said she previously told county staff that with everything she's had to put up with those using the pier, "I'll take a million dollars and you can have it."
Dunbar Lane has a 40-foot right of way and was recorded as 469 feet long — not long enough to reach the creek, she said, and in that small space, "They're trying to fit a park into a temporary use."
"That is the only place for the watermen to come and go without paying for it," Forrest said.
To that, Minnie Russell said, "They have got 985 acres of which 15 acres ... has been leased called St. Inigoes Landing," which is on the other side of Smith Creek, south of Webster Field.
The state recently purchased Kitts Point from the Jesuits to preserve the peninsula, along with Newtowne Neck in Compton.
"For the 50 years plus I've put up with down here, I've been cussed at, the tearing up on my property, the harassment I've put up with, with all of that … We've been asked for kerosene, cigarettes, food, using the bathroom, transportation, directions" from people using the pier, she said.
There are posted signs that state there are to be no vehicles on the pier nor fishing nor crabbing. Rollins said of the pier,"It is in poor condition and needed to be replaced" years ago.
On Monday, Rollins said those signs are erroneous and need to be changed after the blockage is removed from the road.
"Certainly vehicles are allowed to back up on the pier" because that's what it was designed for, he said.
Waterman John Dean in an affidavit said, "this pier is used by myself and other local commercial watermen to load and unload their boats, as well as by recreational crabbers and fishermen."
He also stated, "This pier is of great value to myself and other commercial watermen as we are able to drive our trucks and trailers directly onto the pier to enable loading and unloading of our boats."
"Willy Dean uses this pier for his convenience," Minnie Russell said. "Why should the citizens foot his bills? Why do we have to support one person?"
This time around, she decided to block the road herself with orange construction netting and posts.
"I'm not blocking the road. I'm only blocking 20 feet," she said.The other 20 feet of the road's right of way slopes down toward marshland.
"I want to get this thing cleaned up before I die. I'm going to live peaceful the rest of my life. I'm not finished with the world yet," she said.
