FARMINGTON – A New Sharon tree farmer filed an appeal Tuesday to the state’s Law Court over a road discontinuance dispute.

A Superior Court justice denied Perry Lamb’s appeal this month after Lamb questioned Farmington voters’ right to discontinue a half-mile of upper Hovey Road without adhering to a county commissioners’ order to fix it.

Lamb of New Brunswick owns 1,600 acres in New Sharon with some land on the Farmington line. He bought 400 acres on the New Sharon side of the line in 1969; about 170 of those acres are landlocked if upper Hovey Road remains closed.

Twice in the 1970s attempts to discontinue the road were rejected by county commissioners and Farmington voters.

Lamb listed two reasons in his appeal for moving the case forward to be decided by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court:

• Whether Farmington town officials misrepresented the fiscal consequences of a town meeting discontinuance to the extent that the vote should be voided.

• Whether a Franklin County commissioners’ order on Jan. 2, 2002, to repair upper Hovey road can be voided by a town meeting discontinuance on March 11, 2002.

On Sept. 2, Justice Joseph Jabar ruled in favor of Farmington. He stated that nothing on the record indicated the town didn’t take the proper steps and procedures.

The road dispute began years ago, involving four interconnecting country roads that Lamb claimed were illegally discontinued. Superior Court justices ruled in favor of the towns on three roads, leaving Hovey Road in question.

The terms of a settlement agreement on this road, Lamb stated in previous documents, included Lamb waiving any rights to appeal earlier court decisions, an admission by the town that Hovey Road was a legal town road that had never been discontinued or abandoned and that the town could initiate town meeting discontinuance proceedings any time after the county commissioners had issued an order for upper Hovey Road to be repaired.

Farmington voters balked at spending the estimated $56,000 it would have cost the town to obey a county commissioners’ order to fix it.

Farmington Town Manager Richard Davis said Wednesday that the two issues Lamb listed in this week’s appeal have been at the heart of Lamb’s contention.

“He certainly has the right to appeal to Law Court and I have faith in the justices to make the correct conclusion, and I’m hoping that the conclusion will benefit the town of Farmington,” Davis said.


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