As one of the three selectmen who voted to put the question of discontinuing four of Lincolnville's town roads before the townspeople at the June 9 election, I wanted to share my thoughts on this process, and made the following comments at the May 11 Selectmen's meeting.

1)THE ROAD DISCONTINUANCE PROCESS

There is a very detailed process to be followed before any town road can be discontinued. Townspeople should know that the Lincolnville Selectmen have followed every single one of these steps. Over the past few months, we:

- Notified affected property owners that the town was evaluating possible road discontinuance.

- Hired a qualified appraiser to review the roads' use and determine the damages that should be awarded to property owners impacted by a road discontinuance.

- Reviewed the appraiser's final report, discussed legal issues with town attorney, and shared the final report with affected property owners.

- Held a Public Hearing for affected property owners and other interested parties to discuss the appraiser's report.

- Voted as a Board whether to move forward with the Road Discontinuance.

- Decided whether to include these items as Warrant Articles on voting day (on the ballot) or to discuss publicly at Town Meeting.

- Made the recommendation to support or not support the Warrant Articles, indicated with a recommended "YES" or "NO" vote on the ballot for each of the four roads.

- Held a final public meeting on May 11 for affected property owners to speak in a public forum before the Warrant Articles are voted on with the June 9th ballot.

Lincolnville townspeople need to know that the Selectmen have followed each of these steps to the letter of the law.

2) THE COST OF DAMAGES TO BE PAID

I know it's hard to justify the cost of $60,000 to be paid in damages to the property owners affected by the road discontinuances. Yet we are required by state law to do this. By hiring a qualified appraiser who has determined the amount of damages that should be paid to the affected property owners, the Town has legally fulfilled its requirements. These damage amounts are what Lincolnville voters will either vote to approve or not approve when they vote on June 9th.

Lincolnville's average per mile cost to plow, sand, and maintain our 54 miles of contracted town roads, was $14,000 per mile for the past year, and will be more in the coming year, due to the increased price of our new 3-year plowing and sanding contract with Farley. Simply put, the more roads the Town maintains, plows and sands, the more money it costs.

3) THE REAL COST TO TAXPAYERS

This past winter was a rough one, as we all know. I paid my snowplow guy $400 to keep my driveway plowed. I understand why the affected property owners want the Town to continue maintaining their roads as Town roads. If I had been the recipient of the Town plowing my driveway for the past umpteen years, I would certainly want them to continue doing it. Why pay money out of my own pocket if the Town will do it for free? But it's not free since all of us are paying for it in our tax bill, along with the other 53 miles of roads the Town contracts to have plowed, sanded and maintained.

Lincolnville has 115 private roads, many of which are private driveways. These are maintained, as I believe they should be, by private homeowners, not the Town.

The real question Lincolnville taxpayers need to ask themselves when voting on this issue is whether they want to continue to foot the bill for plowing what are essentially "one house roads", i.e., private driveways, for the single house that is on them, in the years and decades to come? Should taxpayers be responsible for maintaining these roads if culverts need to be replaced, potholes need to be filled, or washouts occur? What if one of the property owners decide to subdivide their land and sell house lots, adding more homes in the future — should taxpayers be responsible for paying to bring these roads to a higher standard, which could cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars? This is not just about the yearly amount we will be saving today, but about what might be required in the future if these roads continue to be town roads.

4) WHO USES THESE ROADS AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE?

When you ask yourself this question, you will see that the 4 roads being recommended for discontinuance as town roads are basically one-home driveways – not public throughways. There are many other public gravel roads in Lincolnville needing serious work, which serve many dozens of homes – not just a single home, for example: North Cobbtown Rd., Masalin Rd., Tanglewood Rd., and Fernald's Neck Rd., to name a few. My personal feeling is that we should be using the Town's money to fix the more heavily traveled and used roads. That is why I made the motion at a recent Selectmen's meeting to move funds from the Capital Reserve Fund into a Gravel Roads Fund, which will be discussed at Town Meeting on June 11th. Approval of this article at Town Meeting will allow the Town to begin making needed improvements to the gravel roads that serve far more people.

So now it's up to the people of Lincolnville to decide. Should the Town discontinue these four single home roads as town roads? I hope you will vote "YES" to discontinue Albert Blood Road, Lloyd Thomas Rd., Thorndike Road, and Martin's Corner Rd. as town roads on June 9.

Cathy Hardy sits on Lincolnville’s Board of Selectmen