CARMEL – The town moved a step closer Thursday to reopening Horseback Road and ending a nine-year legal battle with gravel pit owners by buying two properties at a sheriff’s sale.

The town successfully bid $15,000 for property owned by Earle McSorley and $50,000 for a parcel owned by Barry Higgins. That is the amount both owed the town in contempt of court fines, said Town Manager Tom Richmond. He stressed that the town expended no funds to acquire the properties.

A previous sheriff’s sale of McSorley property in October 2001 decreased his fines by nearly $40,000.

The town foreclosed last month on land owned by the third pit owner, Donald Hewes, for back taxes, according to Richmond. Although Hewes has been served with an eviction order, he was still living in the house now owned by Carmel on Thursday, the deadline set for his vacating the premises. Richmond said the town would pursue the matter through its attorney.

The dispute began in 1988 when officials in SAD 23 expressed concern that the gravel pits were encroaching on the road. The Board of Selectmen sued pits owners in January 1993 and closed the road nine months later.

The issue was complicated by the fact that the then-town manager and road commissioner was Glennis McSorley, wife of one of the pit owners. Her contract with the town was not renewed in 1998, but she was elected selectman in 2000.

She bid $1 for her husband’s property at the sheriff’s sale Thursday, but was outbid by the town.

Bids on the Horseback Road project, approved by the voters at the annual town meeting in March, are due Tuesday, June 11, said Richmond. While voters approved spending $125,000 on the project, the town manager said he has scheduled a special town meeting for Monday, June 17, to seek additional funds if the bids exceed the amount approved in March.

If voters reject a request for more money, the town would complete as much of the project as possible for $125,000, Richmond said Thursday. The goal of the project is to comply with a Penobscot County Superior Court’s ruling that the bank be returned to a 2-to-1 slope.

Earlier this month, McSorley’s

Bangor attorney, A.J. Greif, filed a suit in Penobscot County Superior Court claiming that the town violated Earle McSorley’s civil rights when it failed to properly notify him of the sheriff’s sale last year. The suit names the town and Richmond as co-defendants.