Cold weather issue a hot potato Fort Kent councilors send snowsled problem to town committee

FORT KENT – A long-term solution to problems with snowmobile access to the business district will come from a six-person committee, town councilors decided.

The Town Council also decided Monday night that at least three alternative routes will be open to snowmobilers traveling an International Trail System trail just south of the business district.

The issue is a hot one for the council, which discussed the problem at a public hearing two weeks ago and during at least three council meetings in the past six weeks.

Snowmobiling has become a big cash crop for the town over the past decade. Snowmobilers fill local hotels and motels, restaurants, gas stations and nightclubs during the winter months.

But several residential areas claim to have lost their peace and quiet.

On Monday night, more than 150 people attended the Town Council meeting. Snowmobilers, residents of areas where snowmobiles frequently travel and business people filled the council chambers, where people lined the walls up to four deep.

“There are more people here than at most town meetings,” council Chairman Patrick Plourde noted. “Since we’ve already had several meetings about this, we will only listen to new information.

“Unlike public perception, we have not closed the business district to snowmobilers,” he said. “We have decided to remove some routes, but snowmobilers can come into town.”

Snowmobilers have been entering the business district through several residential areas since about 1996. The numbers have grown through the years. Some days during the winter, as many as 1,000 snowmobilers pass through the neighborhoods.

Traffic has grown primarily because the town acquired a former railroad bed to make a snowmobile trail that comes within 600 feet of Main Street. Snowmobilers travel to the business district to visit motels, restaurants, gasoline stations, nightclubs and to make a connection to Canadian trails over the international bridge.

Robert Plourde, a local lawyer and resident of St. Joseph Street, first made a plea to find a solution to the problem last February. He claims snowmobiles have created a health and safety hazard in his otherwise quiet neighborhood.

He was jeered initially as he spoke Monday night. But “your numbers don’t scare me,” he told the crowd.

He cited problems caused by exhaust fumes and encounters between snowmobiles and pedestrians and vehicles that cross St. Joseph Street.

He also complained that the committee set up to look at the problem did not include any residents of the neighborhoods involved. He won his point, and the committee was enlarged to six from the original five people.

Another opponent of the snowmobile traffic, Priscilla Staples, told the council that she had bought a parcel of land near her Route 161 home in order to stop snowmobile travel over the land to Route 161. She also presented a petition from residents of the neighborhoods that included 130 names against snowmobile access. It was reported afterward that a stipulation on the deed allows snowmobile traffic through April 2002.

Town councilors named Town Manager Donald Guimond, Councilor Paul Bouchard, Snowmobile Club President Allen Chamberland, ATV Club President Carl Ouellette and Chamber of Commerce President Jason Parent to the committee that will seek long-term solutions. The neighborhood resident has yet to be appointed.

“A permanent solution will require money,” Patrick Plourde said. “It’s something we don’t have at the moment.”

What town councilors have done to date is remove St. Joseph Street and Hall Street from permanent routes because of heavy traffic and the narrowness of the two streets.

They have said that Pinkham Avenue, Pearl Street and the St. John Road are alternates to bring traffic into the downtown.

They will also investigate the use of the Main Street Bridge over the Fish River as a route.

Plourde said he was hopeful that the committee would start meeting by next week. He said a committee that looked at a similar problem in the past had run into the “not in my backyard” syndrome.