DIXFIELD – A decision to reinstate an East Dixfield man’s junkyard license was made last week after selectmen learned new details.

Code Enforcement Officer Jay Bernard told selectmen Aug. 25 that he mailed Edward Barbioni a notice of violation after the junkyard owner became delinquent on a contingency plan from January to June to clean up his Route 17 residence.

When the offending junk still hadn’t been removed by the end of June, Barbioni was given another month to comply.

But, Bernard said, July came and went and nothing had been done, so on Aug. 11, he visited Barbioni, telling him that his junkyard license was being suspended due to violations of permit conditions.

“After a very heated discussion, he promised to move the items,” Bernard added.

Barbioni has been in the process of moving his junkyard from his residence to a lot on Severy Hill for which he received a junkyard permit.

However, when Bernard drove by Barbioni’s property on Aug. 13 and reportedly saw that nothing had again been done, he had Barbioni served with a notice of violation.

But on Sunday night, Police Chief Richard A. Pickett noticed that everything except for a cab-over tractor, a Ford van and a dune buggy had been removed from the property. Because Barbioni, a self-employed mechanic, is working on the vehicles, the permit allows him 180 days to repair them and keep them on his property.

Based on that observation, Bernard recommended that selectmen allow Barbioni to get his license back by paying a $50 reinstatement fee in lieu of paying a fine of $100 per day. The board agreed.

Norman and Jean Gould of Wilton, who own property abutting Barbioni’s Severy Hill lot, then complained to selectmen that Barbioni had improved road access to his junkyard lot by removing a section of their stone wall.

Norman Gould also alleged that Barbioni has an excavator on Gould’s property along with a big pile of trash.

Bernard told selectmen that Gould was correct and recommended that Dixfield Health Officer David Saphier address the accumulation of household garbage as a community health issue.

But both Bernard and selectmen said they thought the issues between the Goulds and Barbioni were civil matters.

“It’s a strange quirk of the law that I have to prove that he can’t go on my land. Our attorney says we have the right to block that road,” Norman Gould added.

Jean Gould said that in 1944, a Dixfield town meeting vote discontinued that access road, which used to be the old county road, and it reverted back to Gould’s ancestors.

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