Vera Fire Department, Landowner Locked In Litigation Over Property Rights

The Vera Fire Department and a local landowner are locked in a lawsuit over a dispute about property where the department currently sits.

Junita Sauer now owns the portion of land right next to the fire department in Vera.

"We haven't touched the fire department. We're not hindering anybody or anything and we don't want to," Sauer said.

She bought the land from her aunt, Twilla Owens, who has lived in Vera her whole life.

Owens and her late husband helped build the fire department decades ago, and she's let the fire department sit on her land rent free for years.

Now that Junita owns a portion of the land, she wants to build a house but said she can't because the fire department won't move one of its trailers.

"I would like them to move the trailer off my land, I would like them to leave me alone. Don't try to take what belongs to me," Sauer said.

She filed an eviction notice last October against the fire department and Todd Owens, the current fire chief, who happens to be Owens’ son. He responded with legal filings, including a threat of eminent domain.

"As far as I can tell from the paperwork, they want my land," Sauer said.

The new filings transfer the case from civil to district court. What worries Owens and Sauer is the mention of eminent domain, which means the women could lose their land.

Ultimately both women said they don't want anything from the department, they just want to be left in peace.

"No, I don't want to take one thing from that fire department. I'm very proud of that fire department and what they do. But I just don't understand why they want to take it all from me and from her," Sauer said.

News on 6 called Fire Chief Todd Owens several times for a response but hasn't heard back yet.