Ohio's new fence laws. Unintended consequences again.

Just read my latest copy of "The Ohio Woodland Journal".

There is a story (Is New Timber Trespass Legislation on the Horizon in Ohio) about State Representative Ross McGregor working on (among other issues) logging issues around people knowing where they are and whose property they are on when removing timber.

This brings me to the unintended consequences part:

We had a property line fence law in Ohio that worked for many years. It simply required one to establish a fence around your property. You and your neighbor shared in this cost. This forced us to know where our property lines were. It also forced neighbors to agree (one way or the other) where the property line was.

There was some complaining about the law. Mostly from folks that moved here from another state or folks that moved out of town into the rural areas of the state. One of the arguments against the old law was that it wasn't fair for someone that didn't own livestock to have to build a fence around their property.

My contention is and was that it is always fair when the rules apply to everyone and the rules are known before one purchases property that is affected by the rules.

One of the main problems with the old law was lack of enforcement. Having Township Trustees required to hold hearing on fence line disputes was a recipe for absolutely no action. They are too worried about getting reelected and keeping their OPERS to force the required actions of the law onto their neighbors.

One more reason Townships need abolished in Ohio. (seeds for another post)

Basically, the old line fence law said you shall build a fence. The new line fence law says you may build one if you wish. The new law (of course) has a very complicated set of rules.

So, back to Rep. McGregor and his Timber Trespass legislation.

Some of the fixes he suggested included requiring an expensive survey before any logging operations commence.

If we would have left our line fence law as it was, all we would have to do the address the logging trespass issue is to enforce the law.

Which leads me to continue to believe that our government spends a lot of time fixing the problems that they themselves cause by trying to fix another perceived problem....all without considering the untended consequences of their actions.

Another reason to eliminate Townships in Ohio

The taxpayers would not have to pay the State Auditor's office to audit 1309 townships.

I'm told an audit for a small township costs around $5,000. Multiply that by 1309 = $6,545,000. This is a very conservative figure.

So, we (taxpayers) now pay taxes to support Townships. The Townships pay (using our taxes) the State Auditor's office (which is also tax payer funded) to audit the Townships. Does this sound like an employment agency for auditors? It does to me.

I'm not suggesting that auditing is not needed. See this as an example. However, if our State Auditor Mary Taylor could focus on 88 counties (granted she would have to spend more time at the counties) instead of 1309 townships along with the 88 counties....the job would have to be easier, less costly to do and more thorough.

Townships need to be abolished.

Smaller government, less layers (No not hens)

This makes sense. How many layers of government do we need?

This story made my day. We need to cut spending and here is the low hanging fruit.

Start with eliminating Townships. Townships made sense 206 years ago. Not now. Massive waste of money through duplicative work that the counties or state could take over.

Dissolution threat; Village of Chauncey

Officials' infighting puts village at risk, prosecutor warns.

This would be for the best. I would hate to be the poor Township Trustees that would have to deal with these people, however.