First of all do you own the land your house is on? Is there already an easement in place? And did they pay you for replacing the utility pole? It may have been payment for land damages if there is already an easement. A payment for easements is not really a sale of the land but it is more like a loss of use for the portion of the land the easement covers. And example you could not build a permanent structure there. But if there is already an easement and they wrote you check it could have been for land damages while resetting the pole. In that case I'd say the amount they paid you is for the restoration work you may have to do the restore the property back to what it was. I'd just use that same value as the cost value of the property so it comes out to zero. The taxing authorities did a very poor job dealing with payments for easements as you say you didn't sell the property to the utility.
