Dear Editor, It has been a volatile couple of months in Morrill County with regards to the Assessor’s Office. I wanted to take a moment to offer some clarity.The Assessor and her supporters continually state that there is a lot of misinformation around the recall petition and I do not believe that they are innocent of perpetrating misinformation. One argument I hear is that this is sour grapes and retaliation. The sour grapes come from an elected official abusing power in an attempt to take land from her neighbor.
I’ve heard 10 acres, and while that would be infuriating, it’s not correct.The land in question is, in fact, a little over 1/2 acre, or 0.59 acres, to be exact. If that is unclear to the reader, it is 27,400 sq ft, not quite 4 city lots or just over 1/4 of a typical city block. So what’s the big deal? Well, it was her neighbor’s, not hers. Three surveys, two occurring due to this situation, showed it belonged to her neighbor. After learning that her neighbor was planning to remove overgrown trees from the property, their property, which was knowingly purchased by them with the rest of their land, Rose Nelson, Morrill County Assessor, would have you believe that her actions were altruistic. She put the fence up because the neighbor had cattle in pens on their property that she was concerned might get out and do damage to crops on her property.Then, once ordered by the courts to remove the fence, she obliged; not when 3 surveys, one historical and two recent, showed it didn’t belong to her (and of anyone you might think the assessor would understand a survey) but when ordered by the court.
No, when the neighbor asked her why the fence was put up on their property, she retorted with ‘It’s my property.’ Now that is a light quote because I don’t know the exact words used, but she clearly indicated that the property belonged to her or her family entity.
