July 25, 2022 Board of Selectmen Meeting

Anger and Disappointment

The July 25, 2022 board of selectmen meeting took place in front of a full room of attendees, many of whom would go home disappointed and some angry. One of the remarkable events of the meeting was when one attendee stood up and yelled at the board, “you guys suck!” There was also the accusation hurled at the board. Another surprise was when one of the selectmen had to leave the meeting to break up an angry shouting match in the hallway.

The board convened with three members present: Ben Bartlett, John Morin, and Donna Danis (chairman). Absent: Tony Dumas, Tyler Eaton.

The hot topics all concerned roads, but there were some other important issues addressed.

Mooers Road

The most contentious topic was the question of accepting Mooers Road as a town road. Mooers Road was not among the roads accepted by the town in 2021. It was independently approved at town meeting in 2020 contingent on the road meeting the town’s standards.

Given what happened at this board meeting, it sure now looks like the voters were wise in their 2021 decision to repeal the board’s road standards and to accept the other roads, as is.

Here’s a map of the road.

To get Mooers Road accepted by the town, the petitioner had to make changes to the road that the town told him to make. At the meeting, Chris Sterndale reported that the changes to the road now met the standards imposed by the town. Howls came from several people in attendance that the road did not meet the town’s standards and that the board knows this because many people had written to the board to point this out. Donna Danis replied that the town’s public works director has said that the conditions the town imposed have been met.

A major point of distinction is the changes the town asked to be done to Mooers Road caused changes to South Road. The central focus of the complaints was about the impact on South Road.

Many of the residents of Mooers Road were screaming angry, threatening lawsuits, and hurling insults at the board and their neighbor, whom the town tasked with bringing the road up to the town’s requirements. This is the part of the meeting where one of them yelled to the board, “you guys suck!,” “you don’t listen to anyone; you didn’t listen to the last group of people,” and “you should be voted out!”

Donna Danis repeated that the board’s job was to determine whether the road met the standards. As the director of public works said they had met the standards, then the road had met the standards.

People in the audience claimed that they had talked with the road agent about the road not meeting the standards. The road agent said to talk to Donna Danis. When they contacted Donna Danis, she told them to talk to the road agent.

The board voted 2 to 1 to approve Mooers Road as a town road.

Following this the petitioner left the room, chased by his detractors, where a loud and angry argument ensued, disrupting the board meeting. Selectman Ben Bartlett, who cast the dissenting vote, temporarily left the meeting to go out to the hallway in an attempt to address the angry commotion there.

The implications of this are unclear, but a lawsuit has been threatened. Presumably, the suit will be against the petitioner, but it would seem that the petitioner’s defense is that he just did what the town told him to do. So, it would seem that the town may be liable and may be the target of the lawsuit.

On the video the discussion starts at 54:39. It quickly becomes heated. Immediately after the board votes to accept Mooers Road, at 1:06:20, people storm out of the meeting, yelling angrily at the board. At 1:07:10 a loud, angry argument begins in the hallway. Ben Bartlett leaves the meeting to mediate the argument.

E911 Road Changes

Shortly before the board addressed the Mooers Road issue, it addressed the issue of bringing the town into E911 road addressing compliance. The 2021 study authorized by the town’s voters to study the issue determined that 90% of the addresses in town would need to be changed to bring the town into E911 compliance. The board decided not to proceed with this and instead to focus only on the part of the recommendation involving roads that needed to be renamed and to exclude the part that simply entailed address renumbering. Residents were invited to give suggestions for what the town should rename their roads.

The board discussed the roads individually. John Morin said that he was adamant that the town’s roads that egregiously failed to comply with E911 must be made to comply. Most of the road discussion was uneventful: simply discussions of alternative names in the process of coming to a naming choice.

In one case the residents had to point out that board was making a decision based on an erroneous map. After the error was pointed out there was agreement about the error and how to proceed, pending an onsite inspection.

Then the board got to Lamprey Drive. A resident pointed out to the board that nearly every resident of Lamprey had signed a petition opposing the board’s proposed change, and that several of the residents had written to the board pointing out that the map the town was using for its E911 proposal had serious errors. Residents pointed out these errors at the meeting. Major questions were about the existence or non-existence of a right of way or shared driveway (not on the map, but subsequently agreed to exist) and whether that right of way was rightly part of Lamprey Drive and whether a part of Lamprey Drive the town considered to be town roads was actually a driveway. John Morin reported on his visit to this area, doing a visual inspection that confirmed what the residents claimed was the layout.

A more fundamental error was pointed out to the board that part of the problem with Lamprey Drive is that there was one lot that is alleged to have a deed requirement to have a section of road that would connect the disconnected parts of Lamprey. The abutting neighbors attested that their deed came with this requirement. Hence, the addressing problem is caused by the town’s failure to enforce the construction of the connecting section of road. If the town were to enforce this requirement, then most parts of Lamprey would not have to be renamed and, they argued, allowing all or most of the existing addresses to avoid the need to be changed. The section in question would be about 50 ft long, going through a presently forested area. Furthermore, if the creation of this section of road were enforced, it would allow Lamprey residents a second means of egress, improving public safety. Residents reported instances of being trapped in their homes due to past road blockages.

In the case of Lamprey, the board decided that there were too many unresolved issues about the layout of the road to make a decision that night. They tabled the matter for further study.

The discussion about Lamprey Drive begins at 29:50.

The other issues the board dealt with were not nearly so contentious, but there were several issues of general interest.

No Parking Signs

The board approved the installation of no parking signs on parts of Deerfield and Merry Hill roads due to the public safety hazard that has arisen from excessive numbers of vehicles being parked. The no-parking area on Deerfield is to be in the area near the Fundy boat launch.

2022 Actual vs. Budget

Town administrator Chris Sterndale reported that spending in the first half of 2022 was 46% of what was budgeted. Expenses for road issues were the only item way above budget, but enough other items were below budget that the town was on target. He noted that often in past years that at mid-year the town was below budget only because it had empty positions. This year that’s not the case, which indicates that spending relative to budget is going better than it usually does at this point.