Commissioners considering

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

Blanchard-Shirley Road petition

DOVER-FOXCROFT — After being presented with a citizens’ petition requesting that the town of Shirley be ordered to make repairs to the Blanchard-Shirley Road from the Blanchard town line north several miles to 33 Blanchard Road, the Piscataquis County Commissioners opted to take no action during the Sept. 1 meeting. Instead the commissioners are scheduled to make a decision on whether Shirley officials are meeting their legal obligations during their next meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 15.

“We are going to talk among ourselves and make a decision on the 15th,” Commissioners Chair Fred Trask said. “It will just be a decision, no more input.”

“We have a petition signed by nine folks,” Interim County Manager Tom Lizotte said at the start of a public hearing on the matter, saying most of those signing are Blanchard residents. “This is kind of a continuation from the issue that came up in 2013,” he said as the town of Shirley responded by making improvements to the Blanchard-Shirley Road.

Lizotte said the travelway from 33 Blanchard Road south “really is a rough, 19th century wagon trail” that is closed during the winter. “For what the road is, and it is posted at 25 mph, in a two-wheel drive pick-up truck I had no trouble driving down that road.”

“People in Shirley don’t often use that road to get to Blanchard,” he said, but the road could provide a shortcut for Blanchard residents to head north toward the Moosehead Lake region. “If I was a taxpayer in Shirley I would not be in favor of spending to fix up that road,” Lizotte said. “It would be very difficult for the county to come back and force a town to pay money it does not have.”

Tim Gora, a resident of the road on the Shirley side, said the travelway has not been ditched and bushes and trees are now growing into the road. “The road is actually worse than when you told them to fix it last year,” he told the commissioners.

“The road is passable by state law,” Shirley Head Selectman Mike Muhr said. “Every year we have a budget of $25,000 for summer roads and in 2014 we spent $11,000 on the Blanchard Road.”

Muhr said culverts have been put in and the selectmen have cut trees on their own time on the road. He said the grading contractor retired, so while all of the Blanchard Road was not graded the next contractor will do all of the road.

“How much do we spend on a road that’s traveled by others and not by the people of Shirley,” Muhr asked. He said a 2013 estimate of the cost to completely fix the entire Blanchard Road would be $11 million-$13 million, while the town’s yearly municipal budget is just over $400,000.

In other business, the commissioners had an agenda item asking if the Moosehead ATV Riders can continue to use a portion of the Blanchard-Shirley Road in Blanchard as an ATV access road. The commissioners had allowed the travelway to be used for this purpose on a one-year trial basis last September and they opted to continue access for another year.

“You approved this a year ago and the minutes stipulated you would review it,” Lizotte said, with the sheriff’s department having no issues with continuing the ATV access.

“I have not heard any complaints,” Muhr said.

“I have no problem giving one more year but somehow we need to get the word out there’s some issues there,” Trask said, such as ATV noise at night and concerns of riders not obeying traffic laws.

Commissioners also discussed proposed meeting dates leading up to the November elections.

“We have to have three public meetings to go with the county referendum,” Lizotte said as on Nov. 3 residents will vote on a ballot question authorizing the funding of a new sheriff’s building. Lizotte and Sheriff John Goggin will be present explain the new complex at sessions in each commissioner’s district.

The tentative meeting schedule is Tuesday, Sept. 22 at the Milo Town Hall, Thursday, Sept. 24 at the Morton Avenue Municipal Building in Dover-Foxcroft and Tuesday, Sept. 29 at the  town office in Monson — with all three sessions starting at 6 p.m. A public tour of the sheriff’s building, to help show why county officials are seeking a new facility, may be held on Wednesday, Oct. 7 prior to the first meeting of the county budget committee.

“The initial budget is coming together rather well,” Lizotte said, as the department heads have submitted their individual totals for the spending plan last month. He said the informational technology portion of the budget is still being worked on but may be up from the current year.