PARIS — The X-Tra Mile ATV Club that lost access to Parsons and East Oxford roads at Monday's Board of Selectmen meeting isn't giving up.
Mark Stearns, treasurer and spokesman for the club, said it wants to petition to get use of Parsons Road again after a 3-2 vote to rescind access. “We're going to meet sometime in the future and decide what we do from here.”
“It will come back up. Whether it comes to a selectmen vote, or a town meeting or a town wide vote or there's recalls, I have no idea at this point where it's going to go.”
Stearns called the decision undemocratic. “One person out of 112 changed the vote, and that's not right,” he said.
He was referring to James and Paula Hakala, a Parsons Road couple that began protesting against the ATV access route on their road last August. They told selectmen Monday that they felt invaded by the passing ATVs and that they hadn't enjoyed the last months of summer due to the noise.
“If a number of residents were against this and had a legitimate complaint we could deal with, we would address it, Stearns said. “But we're not looking at a number against it; we're looking at a vast majority for it.”
Parsons Road was an access route between the club's trail system and trails operated by an Oxford ATV club. He said X-Tra Mile had invested about $1,000 in materials, much of the money donated by local businesses, to build a mile-long trail headed toward the Parsons Road.
Club members also put in countless volunteer hours working on the trail expansion and paid for the 10 miles per hour speed limit signs that line the road.
He said hauling ATVs in trucks to the trail expansion isn't an option, as there's no place to park on either end.
Stearns said he and other members of the club have looked over maps and found no other way of connecting those two sets of trails.
He said that while not all ATV riders were considerate, members of his club followed the speed limit and didn't bother people living nearby.
He said the first weekend, when the Hakalas said dozens of ATVs passed their house, was an open ride where X-Tra Mile Club members rode with clubs from Oxford and Waterford on the newly-connected trail systems.
Paula Hakala complained Monday of riders gawking at her and her husband.
After her testimony and Stearns' speech, the board voted 3-2 to rescind access to the two roads. The board had granted access last August.
Selectmen Jean Smart, Lloyd Herrick and Raymond Glover voted to rescind access. Ted Kurtz and Kenneth West voted to continue to allow the club to use the road.
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The problem started back in
The problem started back in June with the initial vote to allow public road access to the ATV club. The Board of Selectmen FAILED to perform any background check on the information that was provided by the ATV club and voted to give access at that time. It wasn't long before homeowners surfaced who had objections to this action. According to Mr. Stearns, after many months of meetings with no alternative route found, the Selectmen really had to let their prior vote stand because "the majority rules" and "that's how democracy works". If anyone bothered to look up the ATV laws in this state, particularly Title 12, Subsection 13157-A Operation of ATVs, Section 6- Operating on Public Way, one could see that the Selectmen are the controlling authority on whether ATVs can run on public roads. If the Selectmen had bother to do their due diligence in the first place, they might have avoided the subsequent firestorm.
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