Omaha daily bee., 1902-04-03
FENCES MUST COME DOWN
Property Owners Cannot Include Street
Space in Their Lots,
BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS ACTS SHARPLY
Unless Owners Pull in Their Lines
City Employees VIII Tear Down
Fences and Throw Ma
teFIal Back.

About a week from next Monday morning
a crew Of axemen and spadesmen will start
out to tear down the fences around some
Of the finest residence places in Omaha and
nothing short OF an injunction or a Calling
gun will stop them, as they will be acting
under the street commissioner, by direction
OF the Board OF Public Works. at the insti-
cation Of the city engineers department,
under the authority Of the city council, with
the connivance Of the mayor and by the
grace OF Heaven. Assistant City Engineer
Craig said:
I'VE have advised and urged and pleaded
with people so long that they have come to
believe we don't mean business, but we do.
The gangs we send out will be instructed
to tear down every fence that protrudes
beyond the boundary line OF the property
IL skirts and Il will not make any difference
to them whether 1t lie OF common wooden
pickets or ornamental iron or even stone.
They must all come down and be moved
back.
Our authority is found in an ordinance
passed some time ago by the council au-
thorizing the Board OF Public Works to
place the legal department at its back and
proceed Systematically to campaign against
those property owners who have fenced in
little strips OF the streets and alleys as
part of their premises.
Finds Force Necessary.
For a long time we have tried to get
people to move back these offensive boun-
dairy marks without using force, but they
have neglected it and we are forced to take
action, as the streets from Seventeenth
west and from Farnam north are being cut
out Of shape by the zlgzsg course OF the
fences. We have sent out three men 10
make surveys and place stakes showing
where the fences should be, and a fourth
man to serve notice on the owners OF the
property. This notice will give the offender
instructions what to do, and he will be al
lowed twenty days from the date OF the
service to get his fence back. The hrst no.
tice was served March "a, and last night
the total was sixty-seven. Today We have
abstractors at work in the registers office
preparatory to serving 100 more in a bunch.
At the expiration OF the time limit the
workmen will be sent to the places where
the FIRST notices were served. and II the
fences are still standing they will be hoisted
out and laid back over the line to be reset
at the owners expense. Some will protest
and threaten. but the men are ordered to
go right on with the work. and II legal ac-
tion is resorted TO the city attorney or his
deputies will be ready 10 tight II.
Considers Ii serious EVIL.
These protruding fences are a more
serious evil than the casual observer
realizes, for they deform the streets by
reaching out In some places more than ten
feet. For instance, Locust street, out In
Kountze place, was plated at sixty-six
feet wide aud has been narrowed by this
process until 1t IL scarcely forty, and Corby
street and others out that way have
suffered nearly as seriously. From the
city hall windows l can see premises Of
a well-to-do citizen who has 3 stone wall
ten feet out in the street. and other SINH
lar instances are surprisingly numerous.
But we have commenced in the north part
OF town, and will work south systematically,
spariDg none"
At the special council meeting yesterday
the engineers department secured, also,
the passage Of an ordinance changing the
curb lines on Emmett street from Sixteenth
to Twenty-fourth. The north line had been
directly over a water trench and the south
one over the gas trench.
Another ordinance passed at this meeting
was one repeating the ordinance of January
II and specifying a new line along Eleventh
street which the tracks Of the Union Pa
cihc spur may occupy.