LINCOLNVILLE — The act of discontinuing town roads, or portions thereof, usually reflects a quiet evolution of a town’s infrastructure. But this year, Lincolnville has been a hotbed of opinion about closing sections of four old roads. It has sparked heated debate amongst the five selectmen since late last winter, and tomorrow, June 9, the citizens will decide at the polls if shutting down portions of these roads makes sense.

It is a debate that included the Budget Committee, which, in the end, voted against recommending that town close three of the four roads. It did not make fiscal sense, their members agreed.

On the surface, the question might be simple, but there is history involved that extends back centuries to old farming families that settled Lincolnville. There is also involved the philosophical debate of how far a town should go to accommodate its residents, and honor old agreements — or covenants, as some say — between property owners and the town.

To Selectman Jason Trundy, the current discussion over discontinuing portions of certain roads is a lose-lose situation.

“I don't think there's any significant savings for the town, but I think we are spending a pile of money getting rid of the roads,” he said. “Plus, a handful of citizens are adamantly opposed to it.”

To Selectman Cathy Hardy, however, the issue is whether Lincolnville citizens want to keep paying for roads that are rarely used, or used by one household.

“Should taxpayers be responsible for maintaining these roads if culverts need to be replaced, potholes need to be filled, or washouts occur?” she has asked. “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?”

And to Selectman Ladleah Dunn, the issue is about fairness. 

“As a representative of the taxpayers of Lincolnville it is the privilege and the duty of the selectmen to consider each of the 1,799 odd tax payers' hard earned contributions,” she said. “As such, I supported moving these articles to as many voters as possible so that they can decide going into the future how their resources are contributed to the betterment of the community. There are many draws on our taxpayers' dollars. I feel it is just for them to weigh in on where their dollars can be best used for the long term health and viability of Lincolnville.”

Discontinuing roads in rural towns is not uncommon, and there is a state statute governing how to do it. Lincolnville has an abundance of old roads, dating back centuries. Ducktrap was a primary industrial point on the coast, and there is an old road even to Augusta. 

But, as the landscape changed with demographics, farms were abandoned and some are deep in what is now woods. Other roads that connect still other roads slowly were ignored, pushed to the back burner with their care. Some were abandoned. They just weren’t needed.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Lincolnville leaders began asking themselves if they should discontinue some of these roads. The subject periodically resurfaces. In 2008, the topic generated a lot of interest, and many letters were written to the selectmen advocating against closing certain roads.

Last year, the topic surfaced again, when the town agreed at the 2014 annual Town Meeting to include $20,000 in the budget to appraise certain roads for possible closure. In closing roads, or certain said sections of the roads, the town ends all obligations to maintain and plow them.

The town hired Ray Quimby, of Quimby Associates, to study the Albert Blood, Lloyd Thomas, Thorndike, and Martin's Corner roads to see what sort of fiscal damages the town would incur by discontinuing portions of those roads. Those “damages” constitute what the town would have to pay the property owners along those specific roads to complete the discontinuance.

The question the appraiser must consider is, will someone be damaged financially by closing a road.

When the subject came up in 2008 to close portions of the Albert Blood, Lloyd Thomas, Thorndike, and Martin's Corner roads, the opposition was enough to take them all off the table.

But, by 2015, circumstances were changing.

The town’s public works crews said that the barely traveled section of Martin’s Corner Road was no longer practical for maintaining.

“The grader operator said he’d never go down there again,” said Town Administrator David Kinney.

The road section in question, which bends around a curve and is a mass of loose rubble, had not been tended to for six to eight years.

Also, the cost of snow removal is due to increase this coming year.

Lincolnville's average per mile cost to maintain its 9.4 miles of gravel road is $10,300 per mile.

Next year, the price for plowing all town and state roads in Lincolnvillle will increase, because the town will begin contracting for snow removal. That will cost the town $4,943 per mile, approximately $1,000 more per mile than this year. 

Each of the four roads targeted for partial closure are all dirt or gravel, but they each have their unique circumstances. If voters approve to discontinue the road portions as posed, affected property owners would be paid damages as determined by the appraiser hired by the town.

1) One homeowner lives at the end of the 400-foot-portion of Lloyd Thomas Road that is proposed for discontinuance. If voters approve, she would be compensated with $10,000.

2) One household rents a home at the end of Thorndike Road, before it extends through the woods to intersect the Martin Corner Road. If that road is discontinued, the owners of the property would be compensated with $28,000.

3) One family owns a home at the end of the Albert Blood Road, and if it is discontinued, the town would reimburse them with $22,000.

4) No one lives on the Martin Corner Road, so the affected property owner would not be reimbursed.

While three selectmen (Rosey Gerry, Cathy Hardy and Ladleah Dunn) voted in favor of the road discontinuances, two disagreed (Jason Trundy and Art Durity).

“I'm opposed to all four closures,” said Trundy. “We had extensive conversations with members of the public that were going to be impacted by this and they shared a list of concerns, including about the amount of damages and whether the appraisals were accurate.”

Trundy said the “estimates of damages were more than I anticipated it would be.”

He also said that some landowners were not happy with some aspects of the appraisals and the process.

“That left me with the feeling we might well gain legal fees if we get challenged,” he said.

 Trundy’s feeling is that the formula used to calculate what the cost is to maintain the dirt roads in town is not fairly represented.

Selectman Art Durity agreed.

He was against the road closures, not only because it represents a moral issue to him, but because the cost of maintaining the roads is less, in his mind, than paying out damages to discontinue them.

“A realistic look at the cost of maintaining these roads, using numbers supplied by the town administrator, the road commissioner and the assessor during a public meeting, suggests a total savings of $4,000 per year,” he wrote, in a letter. “But to achieve that savings, the town will have to spend more than $80,000 of taxpayer money. The math is simple: It will take at least 20 years for taxpayers to realize a return on their $80,000 investment. During this same 20 year time frame, the affected property owners will have to spend $20,000 to $30,000 each to maintain access to their homes. The cost-benefit ratio is completely out of whack. That’s why the Budget Committee voted 7-0 in two cases and 6-1 in another not to recommend closing the roads (the committee did vote to recommend closing Martins Corner Road).”

The Budget Committee did not find the road closure to make fiscal sense. Its members decided that it would cost more, over the long term, to pay damages to the affected property owners than it would to continue owning, and minimally maintaining the dirt and rubble roads.

“It’s a moral question,” said Durity. “There is a social contract between a town and citizen and we just can’t back out of a contract.”

Trundy said: “I don't think there's any siginificant savings for the town but I think we are spending a pile of money getting rid of the roads, plus a handful of citizens adampanty opposed so it is a lose-lose. We have put so little money into those roads, the cost to close would be higher to discontinue than to keep on owning.”

But to Hardy, the issue is who uses these targeted road portions, and for what purposes.

“When you ask yourself this question, you will see that the four roads being recommended for discontinuance as town roads are basically one-home driveways – not public throughways.”

She said, in a written statement: 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, Masalin, Tanglewood, and Fernald's Neck roads, 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.”

The vote on the four road closures is to take place at the polls, Tuesday, June 9, at Lincolnville Central School.

Reach Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657