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BISBEE — A Minuteman-built border fence planned for a local ranch cleared its final legal hurdle this week when a 30-day waiting period expired Thursday without any appeals filed to stop it.
On Friday, however, the status of the project seemed unclear, with the Minutemen and the ranch owner offering conflicting reports on the fence’s progress.
“We are very much moving forward,” Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair said.
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“They’ve got the architects, the contractor and the surveyor down there, they brought bulldozers out, and I am told they are beginning to prepare the ground.”
But the owner of the land said the only construction he had seen on or around his Bisbee Junction property was a Border Road improvement effort by the National Guard.
“I haven’t heard anything from (the Minutemen),” Richard Hodges said. “I know everyone’s been keeping a low profile (during the appeal period), but I haven’t seen or heard anything.”
The contractor hired to build the fence was awaiting a down payment on the project, Hodges said.
“When they put down a deposit, then I’ll know that they’re moving along and that for a fact, it’s happening,” he said.
The Minutemen had initially hoped to break ground on the 0.9-mile fence in July, but the project was stalled when the Cochise County planning department told Hodges it wanted to review the plan.
County Planning Director Judy Anderson eventually ruled the proposed barrier — two parallel 14-foot fences topped with razor wire and outfitted with security cameras — was exempt from county jurisdiction, and local citizens were given until Aug. 17 to appeal the decision.
Mark Apel, the county’s planning manager, said no appeals had been filed by Thursday’s deadline and the fence project was free to move forward.
Earlier this summer, the Minutemen broke ground on a five-strand range fence on the Palominas ranch of Jack Ladd and his son, John.
The group completed 2.5 miles of the fence, but poor weather stalled the final stage of the design — vehicle barriers and concertina wire to flank the barrier.
John Ladd said he had been working with a Minuteman-hired contractor on a cable support system for the fence, and that installation was beginning Friday.
Hair said a Minuteman official in Arizona told her the vehicle barriers for the Ladd fence would be installed in about seven days.
The additional 8 miles of the Ladd ranch also will be getting its own range fence shortly, now that the state has given its approval to the plan, Hair and John Ladd said.
The Ladds lease that section of land from the Bureau of Land Management.
Hair said a high-tech company is preparing to make a multi-million-dollar donation of materials to the Minutemen’s fence-building efforts, and an announcement could be expected next week.
JONATHAN CLARK can be reached at 515-4693 or jonathan.clark@bisbeereview.net
nicole ray wrote on Jun 21, 2009 3:35 PM: