Rockport Select Board:

We, Stephen Florimbi and Sarah Price, respectively request your help. We live at 132 Union Street abutting the open field with the view of Lily Pond. We are now in the eighth week of a surreal living nightmare since we received our neighbor’s notice of intent to file for a DEP permit to demolish 200 feet of the old stone causeway—now walking path, known as the Rock Road—where it crosses that field. The stated purpose: to “return the land to its natural state.” 

The permit was approved in less than a week. It took us eight excruciating days to write our appeal ourselves, all the time knowing that the demolition that was approved could begin at any moment. Then, when we were ready to press send, a semi truck with a dumpster trailer pulled up to the property.

The truck moved on eventually but the dread remains that our neighbor will proceed to destroy the Rock Road, likely damaging the stream that separates our properties and the very wetland he claims to be restoring. Why is this necessary? How is it possible that he has received permission to excavate in a shoreland zone at all, much less to remove a large portion of a structure that has historic significance and community value? And how could this all have happened without any public discussion? 

When we first got word about this travesty, Sarah reached out to people whom we knew cared about the Rock Road trail and Lily Pond — the YMCA, Aldermere Farm, the Camden-Rockport Pathways Committee — people who have been collaborating for decades to clean up Lily Pond and expand their trail systems to include this hidden gem.

And we reached out to you.

We were heartened to hear back from Denise and from John; their interest gave us the impression that they were working on the problem. Sarah later shared our appeal to the DEP with you because we thought it an expedient way to convey urgent information relevant to the town.

We presumed that the importance and relevance of the matter would be obvious and that you’d know what to do to protect the interests of the town, that you’d understand the urgency and the need to act quickly to prevent the destruction of something that can’t simply be put back.

We very much appreciated you adding it to your December meeting agenda. But we were taken aback when after we shared our awareness of the larger housing development plan that the applicant had shared with us—a key point included in the appeal document Sarah had shared with you the week before—to hear Denise say it was the first the board was hearing of it.

We had expected you would have honored Sarah’s emailed request to, “read [the appeal] thoroughly and to take quick action to halt the imminent demolition work on the Rock Road and to represent the public’s interest in clarifying ownership of this significant and historic community resource before it is too late.”

We had naively presumed that you would be prepared to take action that night.

We learned at the December 8 Select Board meeting that the town had also granted a permit for the demolition, that the planning director and the code enforcement officer were advising the developer, but hadn’t bothered to notify us or any other abutters.

We also learned that night that we could appeal that permit, too, at that point it was 26 days after it was issued, with only a few days left in the window to appeal.

We had to hire a lawyer to help us keep up with this confounding appeal game, all in desperation to protect a stream, a wetland, Lily Pond, the Rock Road path, and the property for which we pay taxes for the privilege of living in this beautiful place.

The demolition is reportedly scheduled to begin January 2. The Rockport Zoning Board of Appeals will hear ours January 21. 

 The situation is heartbreaking and outrageous. The applicant’s stated and permitted intention of “restoring the land to its natural state” makes no sense.

The natural state of the land is the same freshwater wetland that exists on our property and others abutting Lily Pond, it is the same wetland that serves as a buffer zone to lessen the impact of storm water runoff on Lily Pond.

The portion of the Rock Road cited for demolition lies in a shore land zone, supposedly protected by shore land zoning ordinances.  The landowner could restore the wetland simply by stopping his practice of mowing to the very edge of Lily Pond.

Why are employees of the town of Rockport advising him to remove the Rock Road and even providing him an erosion plan with instructions to fill that fragile wetland with “Erosion Control Mix” which usually contains invasive plant material?

But imminent, unnecessary environmental damage aside, the other pressing matter is the legal issue of rights to the Rock Road, which the applicant asserts are his alone. That’s not what the release deed from Mid-coast Solid Waste to the Town of Rockport says, and not what the long history of public use suggests.

The Select Board of 1999 understood the Town’s legal interest in the Rock Road. What came of the research they voted to be performed to confirm it?

It should go without saying that it is in everyone’s interest to avoid costly legal fees, not to mention the hassle and delay of citizens’ petitions and such. We need to work together and quickly to resolve this legal issue.

We have engaged Preti-Flaherty to perform a title search and will gladly share the findings with the town. A community member wrote to you volunteering to raise funds from the community.

Please don’t add to the cost and confusion by failing to act. The citizens of Rockport have a right to know what belongs to them before one person is permitted to destroy it, especially something of such historical significance and community value as the Rock Road.

We will not, as Denise suggested at the December 8 meeting, end up where we started. We will end up with a legal decision and the clarity all Rockport citizens need to move forward.

We respectfully ask that you do not delay in taking the following actions:

1. Have Bernstein Shur review the records of former town attorney Paul Gibbons and write a title opinion evaluating the town’s legal interest in the Rock Road through deed or through prescriptive easement.

2. Direct the Town Manager to direct staff to rescind the CEO-issued permit, in recognition of the errors and omissions that gave rise to it, rather than forcing a costly appeal process. 

3. Upon confirming the town’s legal interest, immediately let Rob Simensky and Lily Pond Partners, LLC, know they cannot do anything to the Rock Road without the town’s permission as a matter of title law, separate and apart from the permitting issues.

4. Do not allow Lily Pond Partners LLC to block public access to the Rock Road. 

5. Contact the Maine DEP and Commissioner Melanie Loyzim today and urge them to stay, or preferably revoke, the permit by rule issued for the Rock Road removal, so that the road isn’t already gone before the town can take further action.

We thank you for and very much appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.

Stephen Florimbi and Sarah Price live in Rockport