Mapping project’s SUV causes stir

ELLSWORTH – A mysterious sport-utility vehicle, outfitted so that it looks like a mobile spy unit, has been turning up in private driveways in Hancock County and putting some local residents on edge.

But the SUV, which has cameras mounted on its roof, is not on any nefarious mission, according to a local law enforcement official. It is part of a mapping project for the federal government, Hancock County Sheriff William Clark said Monday.

“The company is legitimate,” the sheriff said of Facet Technology Corp., the company whose logo appears on the side of the SUV. “They are doing legitimate work for the U.S. Census Bureau.”

Clark said his department was unaware of the mapping project until a Tremont official and others called to complain about the vehicle’s intrusions onto their properties.

Some residents have complained that the driver has been terse when asked what he was doing and has not put their minds at ease by providing them with adequate identification or information about the firm’s project.

The sheriff said concerned residents have done the right thing in contacting police about the suspicious vehicle, and that it would have been proper protocol for the company to let police know ahead of time of their project.

Jamie Retterath, president of the Eden Prairie, Minn.-based firm, said Monday the company did provide advance notice of its project to the sheriff’s office.

His company’s standard procedure is to check in at every local county sheriff’s department where the company works and to make sure all the relevant local agencies know what it is doing, he said.

His company has always been careful to comply with all local and state laws when performing its duties, Retterath said.

Facet Technology has mapped about half the counties in Maine and about 200 nationwide, driving down every driveable road that does not have a “no trespassing” sign, according to Retterath.

He said its work and that of other mapping companies will be used by the U.S. Census Bureau to make sure it reaches as many households as possible when it conducts the next nationwide census in 2010.

“We’ll be done [in Hancock County] this week,” he said.