By Timothy Churchill,Staff Writer

PARIS – After nearly an hour and a half of debate on the status of Ken’s Lane, selectmen voted 2-1 Thursday to abandon the southern end of it.

Two selectmen abstained from voting, and Town Manager Sharon Jackson said because there was no majority the issue remains unresolved.

The controversy is whether the town should declare as abandoned the southernmost portion of Ken’s Lane, off Mountain View Drive, or seize it as part of a legitimate public way.

Richard Kennagh owns land and a garage on that part of the road, and the garage blocks access to developable property on the other side.

Kennagh’s attorney, Richard Trafton, said Thursday that his client believes the status of the southern end of Ken’s Lane has only become an issue recently because a private company, owned by Troy Ripley, wants to develop the land beyond his garage.

Trafton argued that the town has no right to seize Kennagh’s property because his client claims it hasn’t maintained the road for more than 30 years.

Trafton said that Kennagh purchased his property in 1964, and the town hasn’t maintained that portion of the road since then.

Trafton said Maine law provides that if a town does not maintain a road, or a portion of a road, for 30 years, then the road is legally abandoned and no longer town property.

Ken’s Lane is paved and maintained by the town until about 40 feet before Kennagh’s property.

Trafton asked that the town find that the southern end of it is abandoned, and that any dispute be settled by Kennagh and Ripley, not the town.

Ripley said he was before the board “as a private taxpayer who has been pushed to the front of the issue,” not as a potential developer. He asked for the board to take action and declare the southern end of Ken’s Lane a public way.

Kennagh’s garage is obstructing that end of the road, Ripley argued, calling it a “violation of every taxpayer’s right to freedom of access to every right of way.”

He asked the board, “What are you guys, the public’s elected voice, going to do?” He said that to let private parties resolve the issue, as Kennagh’s attorney recommended, would be “unacceptable.”

“I’m optimistic you guys have what it takes to make a tough decision,” he told the board. “The Supreme Court just did this the other day,” referring to the court’s decision to allow the taking by New London, Conn., of 15 private properties for the public good of economic revitalization. Ripley said he did not agree with the high court’s decision, but the town would generate far more tax revenue from a development on the other side of Kennagh’s garage than it does from the garage itself.

Selectman William Merrill said one possible reason the town had not maintained the southern part of Ken’s Lane for more than 30 years was because Kennagh built his garage there in 1980.

“It’s hard to maintain the last bit of a town road if there’s a garage on it,” Merrill said.

He voted against abandonment.

Selectmen Raymond Glover and Barbara Payne agreed that although it may be in the town’s best interest to possess as a public way the southern end of Ken’s Lane, the state law said that part of the road was abandoned, since it hadn’t been maintained by the town for more 30 years.

Glover and Payne voted to abandon the southern portion of the road. Selectmen Gerald Kilgore and Kenneth West abstained from voting.

Because there was no majority, Town Manager Sharon Jackson said the issue was not resolved Thursday.

Jackson said afterward that a selectmen’s meeting on July 11 would address an emergency moratorium on methadone clinics in town. That issue was supposed to have been taken up at Thursday’s meeting.