FARMINGTON — Franklin County commissioners received the surveyor’s results on the upper East Madrid Road in Madrid Township.

It appears that 0.7 mile at the end of the road, where the county has been doing winter maintenance, is a private road and not under the jurisdiction of the county, Commissioner Gary McGrane of Jay said Tuesday.

That is what Rufus Griscom, who owns property on the road, said all along, he said.

Peter Cook, a representative of Acme Land Surveying LLC of Farmington, told commissioners that there is no evidence to support that section as a public road.

The road is a county road from the intersection with Barnjum Road headed northerly to where it takes a sharp turn to the east.

“Northerly of that turn, we have found no recorded evidence of an official road,” he said.

Commissioners hired Acme in November 2013 to do research and survey about 1.8 miles of East Madrid Road.

The panel decided to do the survey in an attempt to settle an ongoing dispute with landowner Rufus Griscom on the width of the county road.

Griscom believes the county is infringing on his property rights when it maintains the road, commissioners said last year.

The county has been plowing and sanding the road for several years, Commission Chairman Fred Hardy of New Sharon said.

The portion of the road cannot be discontinued if there is no road to begin with, he said.

Fortunately for Griscom, the county has been maintaining and plowing it, McGrane said.

Griscom previously gave permission to the county to make a turn-around on his property to turn the plow trucks around, McGrane said.

Commissioners plan to look at the road during their annual spring inspection of county roads and determine their next step.

dperry@sunjournal.com

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