Towns regionalize code enforcement East Millinocket hires shared inspector

EAST MILLINOCKET – The town next week will become the latest to regionalize some of its code enforcement by hiring an inspector who also contracts with Woodville, Millinocket, and Medway.

Starting Wednesday, Mike Noble will keep office hours at Town Hall as the town’s new code enforcement officer, and he’ll start with a project dear to the Board of Selectman – attacking the town’s problem with junkyard blight, town Administrator Shirley Tapley said.

“We have one property that we’ve started on. When that’s done, we have a few more that we would like him to take a look at,” Tapley said Wednesday, “and new locations will follow.”

The details of the contract have yet to be determined, but contracting with other towns will cost the town about $5,700, Noble said.

The town already has taken the owner of one alleged illegal junkyard, John Friel, to court. That case was continued to Dec. 1, Millinocket District Court officials said.

Friel faces several thousand dollars in fines and legal expenses, but he and an attorney representing the town are working out a deal whereby much of that expense would be dropped.

Town officials have been working with Friel since the summer to get him to clean up his property. Friel has not denied that the property, his home-based mechanic shop, was messy, but denied that it was a junkyard.

Friel has said, and town officials agree, that he has cleaned up his property, but town officials have accused him of dragging his feet in doing so.

Noble, 29, of Lincoln, said he has not yet discussed junkyard blight with Tapley, but expects to. He worked in Lincoln as a building and housing code enforcement officer from 2000 to 2002 before being hired by Millinocket and Medway in 2002, he said.

Noble’s job is to inspect properties, issue building permits and investigate complaints.

Noble said he is familiar with East Millinocket and expects to manage the three towns’ code enforcement well.

“In covering the other towns, I am through East Millinocket every day at least a couple times a day,” he said. “There’s not a lot of construction in the town, therefore I think that permitting and inspections should be minimal.”