PARIS – The chairman of the selectmen reiterated his frustration Monday with the litigation over an ad hoc committee that was recently dissolved.

Ernest Fitts III and Selectman Glen Young are named in an appeal filed in Oxford County Superior Court by resident Robert Moorehead. The suit charges that the two officials showed a conflict of interest, through familial bias or potential personal gain, in their votes to form a committee to review the town’s subdivision ordinance.

Though the committee was dissolved by the selectmen on April 28, the suit is still proceeding on other requests, including that the named selectmen not vote on issues related to the ordinance.

“I cannot believe that it’s ever come to this,” Fitts said.

Fitts accused Selectman Gerald Kilgore of suggesting a deal after the two met at Fitts’ residence. Kilgore voted against having the town pay Fitts’ and Young’s legal fees on April 28, and abstained from the vote at a special selectmen’s meeting on May 1. In both cases, the board could not raise a three-vote majority due to the abstention of the officials named in the suit.

According to Fitts, Kilgore offered to vote in favor of approving the legal fees if Fitts voted in favor of having the policy and procedures committee draft an ethics policy. At that special meeting, the legal fees issue appeared on the agenda first, and failed to carry when Kilgore abstained from the vote. The ethics policy also failed in a 3-2 vote, with Fitts voting against and Kilgore voting in favor.

Resident Bruce Hanson suggested that Fitts censure Kilgore and that a formal complaint be filed with the Maine Attorney General’s office.

“That is nothing but a quid pro quo,” Hanson said.

Kilgore said Fitts was not telling an accurate version of events, but did not elaborate.

“You’ve kicked this around long enough,” he told the board. “I’m not commenting anymore.”

In other issues related to the subdivision ordinance, a suggestion by Selectman Raymond Glover to put suggested changes to the ordinance before the Planning Board for review failed in a 3-2 vote.

Glover initially suggested that the committee’s recommendations could be put before the Planning Board. However, resident Bob Ripley, who served as the chairman of the ad hoc committee, said it would be “foolish” of the board to use the committee’s work due to the pending lawsuit.

Fitts protested that the five members of the Planning Board were part of the 10-member ad hoc committee, and also expressed his reluctance to proceed with the issue until the lawsuit is settled.

Fitts also requested an agenda item for an open discussion with the six signatories of a Feb. 19 letter to the town arguing that the Jan. 28 formation of the committee was illegal. The letter charges three unnamed selectmen with having a conflict of interest in the vote.

Fitts said his business does not present a conflict of interest with the vote, and asked who the third selectman with a conflict of interest was, as the appeal only names two. He pointed to Kilgore, who voted against the formation of the committee, simply by the process of elimination.

After Fitts’ comments and questions on the issue failed to draw a response, resident Janet Jamison suggested that the selectmen find a mediator between the board and the signatories.

“If I was one of them, I wouldn’t speak up either,” Jamison said. “Not in this arena.”