Split vote on McAlister Rd. maintenance

BUCKFIELD — A motion to adopt maintenance on a stretch of McAlister Road the town deems abandoned failed in a 1-1 vote during the October 2 board of selectmen meeting.

Selectman Rodney Allen made and voted for a motion to extend town maintenance of the road to 3,132 feet, the distance requested by some residents.

Selectwoman Martha Catevenis voted against the motion and Chairman Robin Buswell abstained, citing a possible conflict of interest.

Nearly two months ago, Roland and Leah Frechette presented the board with testimony they claim proves the town has maintained the section of road it considers abandoned.

The Frechettes have requested the town resume responsibility of the section considered abandoned.

The issue has led to considerable confusion over where the town's responsibility actually lies and what state law requires for a road to be considered abandoned.

During the October 2 meeting Town Manager Dana Lee presented the board with measurements of the road he conducted along with the Frechettes and another landowner.

The measurements, requested by selectmen at the September 18 meeting, appear to further cloud the issue.

Documentation of maintenance on the road is apparently contradictory. The town has been reimbursed from the state for .47 miles of the road - 2,486 feet, the measurement Catevenis said should be used to gauge town responsibility.

Maintenance documentation from 2003, uncovered by Allen, however, shows the town working on 2,700 feet of the road. In yet another document the town approved a permit for a telephone pole, called "pole 15," 3,132 feet up the town road.

The Frechettes have requested the town resume maintenance for the road up to pole 15.

Following the vote, Catevenis said the McAlister Road issue had come up time and time again over the years and each time it was considered abandoned. 

She thought the recent measurements were ambiguous.

"We have some measurements that are just not good enough documents to tell me ... that road is where it is," she said.

Catevenis also cited a legal opinion that determined the parcel of road in question legally abandoned.

In a September 4 letter to Lee, Geoffrey Hole, an attorney at the Bernstein Shur law firm, said it was clear in his mind that the road was considered abandoned after conducting interviews with former town road crew members. 

"The fact that the town performed a couple of acts of maintenance in recent years ... does not begin to re-establish the road as a town road," Hole writes.

"It would take at least 20 years of continuous maintenance to do so."

Buswell, who recused himself from previous discussion, suggested that despite a legal opinion board members sometimes needed to do what was right. He thought the board was making a mistake with the vote.

Following the vote, Roland Frechette asked whether this was the end of the discussion over the road before leaving the meeting.

The Frechettes have previously insinuated they will pursue legal action against the town to resume road maintenance.

"The town's going to spend a lot of money here for nothing," he said.