Fort Kent council plans to maintain 2 unpaved roads during winter

FORT KENT – The Fort Kent Town Council agreed this week that winter maintenance on two unpaved roads will be initiated next winter.

Councilors unanimously agreed that some summer work also will be conducted on the Wilson School Road and the East Michigan Settlement Road to have them ready for winter maintenance.

The decision was longer in the making than testimony at a Tuesday night public hearing on the issue. Only four people, all residents on the two roads, were at the hearing. Four other residents came in after the brief hearing was closed.

“We are in favor of opening the two roads,” one woman said, the only person who spoke. Those who attended left when the regular biweekly meeting of the Town Council started.

There are about a dozen residences built on Fort Kent roads closed to winter maintenance. Two families living on the roads made the request for the plowing of the roads during the winter.

Last winter, Marcel Cyr, a resident of Wilson School Road, plowed the 1,000-foot section of his road and another 900 feet on the East Michigan Settlement Road to the home of Melissa Jandreau. They are the two residents who requested that the roads be taken off the winter roads list of closed roads.

If the roads were to be accepted for winter maintenance, the town would be liable for their plowing. In addition, the two roads would need ditching work and the installation of culverts during the coming road construction season.

Last fall, the Town Council had denied a request from Jandreau to plow the road. In 2001, Jandreau built a home 700 feet up the East Michigan Road from where the snowplow stops. She had claimed that her family needed the road plowed to get to work and school.

When the road was last closed to winter maintenance, there were no homes on the East Michigan Settlement Road.

One reason Jandreau’s request was refused last fall is that requests to open roads closed to winter maintenance must be made before Oct. 1 each year.

The two roads were on a list of town roads closed to winter maintenance by town meeting action in 1989 and 1999.

Work that needs to be done this summer on the two roads started this week. About 2,000 feet is involved in the section of the two roads that need to be worked on.