East Millinocket’s pursuit of ‘eyesore’ gets results

EAST MILLINOCKET – The town and a Western Avenue man may on Wednesday settle code enforcement claims that he was running an illegal junkyard at his home-based auto mechanic service.

John Friel met with the Board of Selectmen for about an hour Monday to settle claims that could cost Friel, owner of Friel’s Auto Service, about $2,200 in fines and legal fees, Friel said. Friel is due to meet with town attorney Dean Beaupain before appearing in Millinocket District Court on Wednesday.

The town first pressed Friel to clean up the yard at his home in May, citing an extensive mess of lawn mowers, engines and engine parts, scrap iron and other metals, among other things, that constituted a real eyesore, Selectman John Rouleau said.

“It was quite an eyesore,” said Rouleau, who, as an across-the-street neighbor, saw it firsthand. “We told the [former] code enforcement officer to look over the town and prioritize them and his was considered the worst.”

Friel didn’t deny that his property was messy, but most of the mess, he said – 30 years of stuff – was behind the house and not visible from the street. It included more than 20 lawn mowers and 100 tires.

Further, none of it was junk, he said, and he claimed that he worked steadily since June getting rid of it. Friel often gave away valuable materials instead of selling them in his haste to comply with the town, he said.

Code enforcement of such situations was scarce, he said, claiming that Rouleau used his selectman’s influence to push the former code enforcement officer, Charles Gulesian, to act. Gulesian resigned in September.

“It just strikes me as strange how I am the only one who has been taken to court,” Friel said. “There are plenty of properties around that never have had that happen.”

Friel was treated fairly, Rouleau said. He claimed that Friel dragged his feet cleaning up his property and promised that anyone else who fails to maintain property properly would face the same penalties.

“There are some other people who will be right behind him,” Rouleau said.

The selectmen’s apparent newness to the enforcement business was apparent. They admitted meeting in an illegal quorum during an inspection of Friel’s property last week, but said the error was inadvertent. They took no action during the inspection, they said, and were impressed with Friel’s efforts to clean up the place.