I totally understand what you are saying (and agree with you). His supposed concern was that we would impact his driveway by putting in the culvert and he needs every inch of it for backing trailers into the area to the right of the picture (although in reality he did not as I could clearly see where the vehicles had been driving into said area and they were nowhere near the area we wanted to work on). Secondly, I was not the person who asked him for permission to put it in so it is very possible that my other neighbor did not adequately/accurately relay our requested plan. But knowing that he had been hesitant to allow work along his section of the road in the past is what compelled me to move on to "Plan B" of raising the road versus trying to convince him that we need a culvert. It is a bit frustrating as he and his father needed variances in the past and none of the neighbors objected to them, but something as simple as a culvert installed at no charge to him was an issue.
Secondly, if we had pushed the agenda it could certainly have caused ill will, especially towards me because everyone knows I am the spark plug/driving force to keep road improvements going. Since everyone on the road gets along (which is tough thing to achieve with 13 landowners) it is better left that way. In the past a couple of our neighbors have taken (frivolous) legal action against each other, but all of them are now dead and their places have changed hands. He is a good neighbor in the respect that his family (including two teen boys) are very quiet so (knock on wood) you never need to worry about them causing any issues. Side note-they are very private people (especially his wife), they had lived there for 12 years before I saw his wife face to face and the only reason why I finally met her was because I flagged her down on the road to warn her of a tree that had fallen further up the road. I literally could not have picked her out of a lineup before that.
As a small silver lining, after we decided to raise the road, we discovered the phone line runs right through the culvert area so that would have been a rude awakening to sever. Anyone know how much it costs to fix a line? We had no idea there were any lines in the area. I guess it pays to call gopher state so they mark the lines, plus their service is free!
