RUMFORD – Selectmen delayed taking action on setting a special town meeting to act on a land swap with the local paper mill and road closure until next week after local lawyer Tom Carey said a nearby landowner wants compensation.

At a lightly attended public hearing Thursday night, NewPage Corp. spokesman Tony Lyons outlined the mill’s plan to deed about 33 acres of recreational land to the town in return for about 1,750 feet of Railroad Street.

Plans are to build a $5 million electric substation on that and adjoining property already owned by the mill.

Carey said his client, Peter Lee Buotte, owner of the former Agway building on Railroad Street, requests compensation for the loss of a second access to his building.

Town lawyer Jennifer Kreckel said Buotte’s property did not abut the section of road proposed for closure and is not land bound. She said, too, that the building is vacant and hasn’t been used for five years.

Carey said his client wasn’t against the proposed deal between the town and the mill.

“He just wants to be compensated. It’s a commercial property,” Carey said.

Kreckel said the law calls for abutters in such cases to be compensated when a road is closed, if they wish, but not for other properties.

A piece of town property will separate Buotte’s property from what would become the mill’s property.

Selectmen took a seven-minute closed session to discuss the information presented by Carey, then decided to put off a decision to send the issue to voters until their April 5 regular selectmen’s meeting.

Bob Stickney, a land consultant with NewPage, said the company’s lawyer agreed with Kreckel’s opinion.

In the interim, Kreckel will review Carey’s information. Plans are to hold a special town meeting April 23 to close the 1,750-foot section of Railroad Street and turn it over to NewPage for the 33 acres of largely recreational land, which is already being used by the town for such activities.

The mill plans to give the town Morency Park and other riverfront property near it including the parcel on which the fire department’s ladder truck is stored, the ball fields at Falmouth Street and Lincoln Avenue, the Virginia ball field, Veterans Park, the so-called snow dump area on Rumford Avenue, and the overflow parking lot along Railroad Street.

The mill would construct a turnaround at the proposed new terminus of Railroad Street, then turn it over to the town, Lyons said.

“We’ll look into Tom Carey’s claim and finish on April 5,” said board Chairman Jim Rinaldo.

If it is determined that Buotte must be compensated, payment would be the town’s responsibility, Kreckel said.