CARMEL – The Horseback Road saga took another turn this week when two residents filed a lawsuit against the town in Penobscot County Superior Court.

Earle McSorley and Sharrlyn Parsons filed suit against the town, claiming that the refusal by the Board of Selectmen to allow an article supported by a legal petition drive onto the warrant for the March 4 town meeting will cause McSorley irreparable damage.

The article would allow voters to decide whether or not McSorley, the owner of a gravel pit along the Horseback Road, would be able to add a guardrail and thus fulfill a judge’s orders to make the road safe for travel, the suit stated. The article also stipulates the town end its attempts to collect fees, fines and forfeitures from McSorley.

Parsons is a friend of McSorley who assisted in the process of obtaining signatures on the petition.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to insert the article into the warrant for the coming town meeting.

For 12 years the town has attempted to lower the Horseback Road and secure the proper rights of way to obtain enough material to fill in the gravel pits along both sides of the road in an effort to make it safe for travel. The road has been closed since 1993 when selectmen voted for its closure.

McSorley, who owns the land in conjunction with Donald Hewes and Barry Higgins, was ordered by a judge in 2001 to pay $50 a day until the grade of the road was reduced to 2:1 and a guardrail was placed alongside the part of the road that passed through the private owners’ land.

During 2001, a judge determined that McSorley was the only owner with the resources to complete the job and pay the $50-per-day fee that had mounted for each defendant.

With the road work still incomplete, a 75-acre parcel of land owned by McSorley was auctioned off on Oct. 30, 2001, for $40,000 to help pay for the fines that McSorley had incurred. That land was purchased by the town.

While selectmen accepted the petition that was signed by 132 registered voters and submitted in October 2001, they decided not to allow the item onto the town’s warrant for the annual town meeting in March 2002, even though the warrant has yet to be completed.

“Our legal counsel would not recommend putting it on because parts of it were illegal,” said Carmel Town Manager Tom Richmond on Thursday. “It will not be going onto the warrant voluntarily. We’re under the advice of two attorneys that what they are asking for is not legal.”

Richmond would not elaborate further, but stated that an item will be on the warrant in March to allow the town to take a four-year loan for $125,000 to repair the road so that it may once again be open to the public.

If voters approve the loan, then the town will take over control of all the land owned by McSorley located on Horseback Road, Richmond said.

The Horseback Road issue began in 1989 when the town notified the gravel pit owners about concerns that excavation had encroached on the road and made it unsafe for travel.

Neither Richmond nor other members of the Board of Selectmen had been served with a notice of the lawsuit by Thursday night, but expected that it would arrive in the next few days.

Calls to McSorley and Parsons’ attorney, Arthur Greif, were not immediately returned.

“Great, another $5,000 to $10,000 down the tubes in legal fees,” Richmond said, reacting to news of the pending lawsuit. “I can’t wait for this to be finally over.”