PARIS – Selectmen voted unanimously Monday to appeal a recent court decision that determined Colby Farm Road is a town way.

Raymond Colby of Oxford filed a complaint in December 2006 asking a judge to find that the dead-end road is a town way and that there is no evidence that it had been discontinued or abandoned.

Colby’s attorney, Dana Hanley, told selectmen in 2005 that Lemuel Jackson built the road about 200 years ago, and it showed up on town maps in the 1800s as part of a town network. Colby owns the land along the west side of the road, which runs from Biscoe Road to the West Paris town line.

Hanley argued that actions by the town, including a public hearing on closing the road for the winter in 1992 and the laying of gravel on the road in 2004, led to the assumption that the road was a public way.

In court documents, town attorney Ted Kurtz argued that the road had not been passable for more than 30 years, creating the presumption of abandonment. Kurtz also stated that a 1968 decision by the selectmen to designate the road as a limited user highway “suggests that their intention was to make a declaration of the status quo which had existed for many years prior to then, namely, the town had not and would not maintain the road.”

Justice Robert Crowley ruled in favor of Colby on May 21 in the Oxford County Superior Court. Crowley stated that only town roads could have their status changed to limited user highways. He also determined that the town had not abandoned the road due to maintenance performed between 1971 and 2005 at the request of a camp owner on the road.

Kurtz advised the board Monday that the issue should be appealed to the Maine Superior Court.

Kurtz said a town road is created when a town acquires land and compensates a landowner. He said there was no record of that occurring with the Colby Farm Road. Kurtz also said the 1968 decision does not constitute a formal designation of the road as a public way, and that a survey done by the Maine Department of Transportation was also flawed.

“The judge was highly selective in his evidence,” Kurtz said. “I say neither one of those bases holds any water at all, and I say this is an appealable issue.”

Kurtz said that while there is no documentation recording a town abandonment of the road, such a record is not necessary until a road has been deemed a town road.

There is one camp on the road, and selectman Raymond Glover said there are two lots on either side of the road. Glover said the town would have to maintain the road if the decision is upheld, but not necessarily plow it in the winter.

“You wouldn’t take a general passenger car up there,” Glover said. “It’s passable, but it’s not a very good road.”

Kurtz said he will charge a flat rate of $5,000 for the appeal, which will cover the process through to the court’s decision on the appeal.

Resident Jean Smart said that maintaining the road could ultimately be more expensive than the appeal if new developments on the road require town improvements.

“I just think we would be penny wise and pound foolish not to pursue this,” Smart said.