Enterance monument owned by the city?

Looking for some of your thoughts on this situation.
We live in an 120 home subdivision where we have a mamouth enterance monument that sits in an island in the middle of the city owned street at the enterance to our subdivision. The developer turned the association over to us homeowners on 5/23/05, at this time the developer stated it was the HOA's responsability to insure (liability), maintain, and pay for the electric the 8 flood lights use. The developer stated this monument would be the only common property in the subdivision. For two years now, the association has tried to aquire the deed for this piece of property from the developer, which brings us to today. He finally admitted there is no deed for this property because it is actualy part of a "street right of way" and the city technically ownes it. So, can anyone here explain to me how it would be the HOA responsability to insure, maintain, and pay for the electric bill on a piece of property no one in the subdivision has any ownership in. I personaly feel it is not the HOA responsability, and it has been costing all of us about $2000 a year to maintain and insure this monstrosity. Not to mention, I beleive it is illegal to even insure a piece of property you don't even own. Am i wrong in my thinking here?
Thanks, Jason

Donna,
Thanks for the responce. Getting a straight answer from city hall is like trying to make apple juice out of oranges. We live in a small town of about 3500 people, and this previously mentioned developer bank rolled our new mayors election. These two individuals scratch each others back, so getting the city hall to actualy give you an honest answer when it goes against this developer is useless. If no agreement was made in the past, I guarantee they will make one tomorrow. We are having our bi-annual association meeting tonight, and the mayor said he would be in attendence. Our attorney is pulling the final plat on the subdivision from the county court house tomorrow, so that will hopefully answer many of our question.

Donna,
Not many of the other members even know about this issue yet, only myself and the BOD of the Association. That will change tonight when i bring this up at our meeting. The Associations attorney is indeed pulling the plat tomorrow, but I already know the plat has that area marked as a street right of way. It is not a seperate piece of property.
I'll keep everyone posted.
Thanks again,
Jason

Many of us would love for the city to just get rid of it. It causes such a traffic nightmare at our enterence. The developer stated he spent over $60,000 building this thing, this thing is huge. This monument is about 30' long, 10' wide and atleast 15'-20' high. Imagine this thing sitting in the middle of a 30'wide city street. I'm really suprised someone has no hit it yet. The city actualy had this developer remove a monument sign he placed at the enterance of another subdivision he built 15 or so years ago. That subdivision felt the same way I do, not our problem!

What is preventing us from tearing it down? For one, we don't apparently own it, and from an educated guess "I'm in the construction trade" it would probably cost around $20,000 to remove it. This monument has a steel I-beam frame built into a triangle that is covered with stone and brick. Under this triangle sits a solid chunk of stone about 10' high, 2' thick, and 6' wide. All of this inturn rests on a solid concrete footing that is 30' long, 8' wide, and would guess dug app. 4' under grade. This would be a massive undertaking. I'd post a picture of this thing, but not sure how to on this forum if you even can.

JasonL: You probably have already received the answer from the city by now as to who owns the monument, but I have a question for you.

Since the developer 'stated' it was the HOAs responsibility to insure, maintain and pay for electric...and also that it is the ONLY common property in the subdivision, your official documents should also confirm that the monument is indeed part of common property and to be maintained by the association. Do they?