Recreational property at risk of confiscation

MILLINOCKET – Recreational property into which the town has invested millions of dollars could be taken by a new regional school unit being formed if officials don’t act, according to Town Manager Eugene Conlogue.

Conlogue sought Town Council permission during a meeting on Thursday for a surveyor to examine land at Granite Street and Stearns High schools – including the town’s new $1.4 million community pool – saying that under the new school reorganization law, regional districts will become owners of all school property upon their formation.

“The deed at Stearns talks about recreation and school property, but does not differentiate what is part of the school and what is part of the town,” Conlogue said after the meeting. “We have to protect those assets from being confiscated by an RSU, especially when they haven’t paid anything for them.”

Similar deed questions could cause problems across the state, Conlogue said.

“I think that almost every municipality in the state will have to face this, especially in situations where a town has a school department and an active school system,” he added. “The Millinocket School Committee is not a legal entity and cannot own anything.”

Surveys would be a first step to determining what properties belong to whom, Conlogue said.

Councilors agreed with Conlogue that they wouldn’t want a regional school board taking ownership of town recreational property.

“There is no [guarantee] in this … but we feel we have a pretty good position if we can isolate those areas that were deeded to the town for school and recreation purposes,” Conlogue said. “I think we have a very legitimate claim as to why this [property] can stay with the town.”

Council Chairman Wallace Paul said, “I think we should do [a land survey], but I like the idea of sending it out to bid.”

Councilors Jimmy Busque, David Cyr, Scott Gonya, Bruce McLean and Paul agreed, saying that the amount Conlogue wanted for Plisga & Day Land Surveyors of Bangor was too large not to go to bid. Councilor Matthew Polstein was absent.

Conlogue asked that the fund request be withheld from publication to aid the bidding process.

Surveying Granite Street is probably a moot point, Gonya said, given that declining school population would likely lead to closing that school in any event.

“We have a high school that holds 800 to 850 and under 600 students in the entire system,” he said.

Stearns’ athletic facilities include an outdoor skating rink, the pool, a park playground that Conlogue said cost $70,000 to $80,000, several baseball, football and soccer fields, and hiking trails.

Under the law creating the regional school units, each new district must consist of at least 2,500 students and one publicly funded high school. But districts of at least 1,200 students will be permitted when demographics or geography make it unreasonable for those systems to combine.

The state rejected a plan to consolidate Katahdin region schools – the Millinocket School Committee and East Millinocket, Medway and Woodville of Union 113 – forcing those systems to propose joining RSU 17, a Rhode Island-sized area that includes northern Penobscot County, Bancroft and Glenwood Plantation of Aroostook County and Medford of Piscataquis County.

A letter proposing that plan to the state Department of Education was being drafted and sent this week.