Carmel approves warrant; gravel pit tops items

CARMEL – Selectmen Monday night approved the warrant that residents will vote on at the annual town meeting next month. The proposed budget includes a net increase of $42,381, according to figures provided by Town Manager Tom Richmond.

Voters approved a $941,471 budget last year that included a capital expenditure of $82,500 for a new ambulance. The total budget selectmen are asking voters to approve for 2002 is $901,352. That does not include the town’s school budget.

Selectmen also changed the order of the warrant, so that articles dealing with a proposal to lower the Horseback Road would be the first financial item voters consider. If the efforts of those seeking to put a competing measure on the warrant are successful, it also would be placed toward the top of the warrant, selectmen agreed.

Richmond suggested the board move the articles to save time at the meeting because if they were located near the end of the list, time would probably be taken at the meeting to move them the list.

The selectmen support three articles that would authorize the town to take out a four-year loan for $125,000 that would pay for engineering and lowering the Horseback Road to obtain the needed fill to provide the 2-to-1 roadside slope required by state statutes and ordered by the Penobscot County Superior Court.

The road was closed in October 1993 and Earle McSorley, Donald Hewes and Barry Higgins, owners of gravel pits along the road, were taken to court that year. The dispute has been in court ever since. If the plan, proposed by Richmond and endorsed by a majority of selectmen, is approved by voters, the road could be reopened by September.

A preliminary court injunction sought by Sharrlyn Parsons and McSorley, whose wife Glennis is a former town manager and a member of the board of selectmen, is still pending in Penobscot County Superior Court. It claims the board’s refusal to allow the placement of an article on the warrant that was supported by a legal petition drive would cause McSorley irreparable damage.

The petition, signed by 132 registered voters and submitted in October to selectmen, asked that residents be allowed to vote on an article that would end the lawsuit against McSorley, but not Higgins or Hewes. The proposed article acknowledges that McSorley has “labored extensively” to render the Horseback Road that passes through his property safe for travel. It also states that all he needs do is put up a guardrail and the town will end its attempts to collect fees, fines and forfeitures from McSorley.

On the advice of Town Attorney Lee K. Bragg of Augusta, the selectmen refused to place the article on the ballot. The petitions were presented in late October and Bragg informed the board in mid-December that the proposed article was illegal because it “seeks to have voters take certain action which is beyond the authority of the town meeting.”

In a related matter, the town will hold its second sheriff’s sale at 11 a.m. Feb. 28 at the town office. It will sell a parcel owned by Higgins in an attempt to recoup more than $41,000 in liens against the property. The liens are a result of contempt of court fines. The town hopes to sell the property for at least $26,000. It also plans to sell three trailers owned by Higgins later in the year.

Among the civil duties of county sheriffs’ departments outlined in state statutes is a sheriff’s sale of property on behalf of municipalities, Penobscot County Chief Deputy Glenn Ross said last year.

Last year, an attempt to sell a parcel owned by McSorley created controversy when the town bid $40,000 on the property after the only other bid for $1 was submitted by Parsons. Selectman Jay Deane Monday night described that transaction as taking “a paper lien and turning it into a paper asset.” He also said that selectmen approved the town bidding on the property prior to the sale in an executive session.

Ted Johns, who is running for selectman, questioned the legality of the town’s actions because voters did not approve the $40,000 expenditure.

The selectmen will hold an informational meeting on the warrant that will include time for candidate speeches at 7 p.m. Feb. 21 in the Carmel School gym. The election will be held on March 2 and the town meeting will be held at 7 p.m. March 4 at the school.