City of Calais sued by developer Failed bid to build middle school cited

BANGOR – A Down East developer and his wife have sued Calais, its school committee and a citizen group, alleging they interfered with the couple’s efforts to build a middle school.

John “Jake” Chambers and Rhonda E. Chambers of Calais claim they have lost nearly $1 million in income and expenses in a controversy that began nearly two years ago.

Their U.S. District Court lawsuit, filed Monday, does not seek specific monetary damages but claims the city’s former mayor and its then-school committee “were motivated by bad faith and malicious intent” when they backed away from a school construction proposal made by the couple in March 1999.

The lawsuit contains four counts and claims violation of the couple’s due process and equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It seeks compensatory damages plus interest, costs and attorneys’ fees.

Jake and Rhonda Chamberses’ allege they lost money and future income that would have come from a lease agreement they signed with the Calais school committee. The lawsuit says they also lost alternative employment opportunities.

Efforts to contact the Chamberses’ lawyer, Wayne Doane of Exeter, were unsuccessful Tuesday. It could not be determined Tuesday who would legally represent the defendants in the matter. The Calais school superintendent, May Bouchard, was not expected back until after Christmas and the school committee head, Regina Taylor , could not be reached.

The couple, through their lawyer, have a few weeks in which to legally serve the defendants. At that point, the city and the school committee will be given several weeks to file a reply to the lawsuit charges. If not settled, the lawsuit could be ready for trial within a year.

The lawsuit singles out the city’s former mayor, Judy Alexander, and school committee member Maria Tickle for alleged abuse of power in efforts to get the city out of the Chambers agreement. Alexander no longer is the mayor of Calais. Efforts to reach Alexander and Tickle were unsuccessful.

According to the lawsuit, the couple had submitted a proposal 21 months ago to the school committee to build a new middle school on property they owned to “replace the deteriorating and uninhabitable Calais Middle School.” According to the proposal, the school committee would have leased the building for a five-year period upon completion.

At that point the system’s middle school students were being housed in an area church and some were at the elementary school.

In March 1999, the Calais school committee and the city’s planning board approved the proposal and excavation began on March 31, 1999. About a month later, the state Department of Education informed the school committee it would not subsidize the proposal.

But the panel, on a second vote, approved it by a 3-2 vote.

According to the lawsuit, the school committee signed a lease-with-option-to-buy agreement with the Chamberses in May 1999, and the city granted a building permit on June 25, 1999.

The goodwill apparently ended at this point because three school committee members were recalled in a July 20, 1999, vote. The recalled committee members had been in favor of the Chambers project and had supported it in the second vote, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit contends that, after the recall, Alexander and new school committee member Tickle violated the Chamberses’ rights by “knowingly encouraging, conniving and consenting to the obstruction” of the couple carrying out the terms of the contract. The lawsuit charges Alexander and Tickle “employed denials, delaying tactics and intimidation” to get out of the agreement. The lawsuit charges the city and its mayor revoked building permits and ordered a work stoppage to “thwart the installation of storm drains and sewer lines” to the project site.

It was “a malicious attempt to force the plaintiffs into a breach of contract,” the lawsuit alleges.

In its second count, the lawsuit charges the entire school committee, Alexander and the Public Action Committee for the Betterment of the Calais School System with placing “intimidating and threatening telephone calls to members of the pre-recall school committee in order to influence [them] to vote against the plaintiffs’ project or be forced to resign or be removed from their elected positions,” the lawsuit alleges.

The count charges Tickle, Alexander and four school committee members “did enter into covert negotiations” with a dealer to lease mobile classrooms as an alternative to the new school.

“The actions of the defendants were motivated by bad faith and malicious intent to financially injure” the Chamberses, according to the lawsuit.