JaNelle Rutledge lives what she describes as a country lifestyle in her home near Slaughterville. She and her husband, Russ, moved to their rural property off Highway 77 from Colorado five years ago to be closer to family. Their daughter and son-in-law also live on the property.
“We have nine grandchildren, and they love it here. They play football in the meadow. We have family reunions in the meadow, we had Fourth of July in the meadow,” she said.
Shortly after they moved in, Rutledge says they learned about the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s plans to purchase the meadow — and all 12 acres of their property — for construction of the ACCESS Oklahoma Turnpike.
“My husband and I are in our eighties now, and we thought we had the place that we wanted to live in forever. So when we found out that this was a targeted place, we started fighting it,” she said.
The Rutledges got involved with local anti-turnpike advocacy group Pike Off OTA, which has sought to stop the agency from moving forward with the construction through various avenues, including filing a federal lawsuit earlier this summer.
Rutledge does not want to sell her property, but she said her family has started looking into how much money they would need to move.
“Their first offer without having appraised it at all was — maybe we could have moved the chicken house for that much money, cuz it was so little. We want to have something equivalent to this place if indeed we have to move,” she said.
Under Oklahoma statute, the OTA is allowed to take private property for the purpose of constructing a turnpike through a process called eminent domain.
Oklahoma City University School of Law Associate Dean and professor Paula Dalley said the right to property is one she teaches her students is not as straightforward as we might expect it to be.
“There's an underlying rationale that the only reason you have land in the first place is because the government chooses to protect property rights. If the government just suddenly said, we're not going to protect property rights, then you know, all the people with big guns would come in and I would not have property,” Dalley said.
“So, people think of it as being something very tangible and real and attached to them. And legally, it's just not treated that way.”
In order to take private land through eminent domain, Oklahoma statute requires the OTA to pay the landowners the fair market value of the property being taken as it was before the project was announced.
Dalley said that’s where the agency’s legal obligation ends.
“People value their property on a personal level, whereas the law values the property on a market value. It's not a great system. Landowners are often not compensated the way you or I might want to see them be compensated, because the system is only giving them fair value. And there's more to land than that,” Dalley said.
The OTA has already sent appraisers to Rutledge’s property. While she said there is an amount of money her family expects to be offered, there is not truly a price they can put on their home.
“I don't know that we could ever find another place like this,” she said.
“How much money does it take to buy a dream? How much does it take to buy all of the family memories that we've created here?”
Rutledge said her neighbors have already sold their property and have started building a new house elsewhere.
Meanwhile, her family’s discussions with the OTA are still ongoing. With her daughter working in Tecumseh and her older grandchildren living in Edmond, Rutledge may have a difficult time finding a new place to be close to her family. But for now, she’s going to stay in her meadow for as long as she can.
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