CANTON – Former Whitney Brook dam owner Raymond Fortier of Sabattus may soon lose his personal property if he doesn’t remove it from town land, administrator Kathy Hutchins said Thursday night.

Selectmen’s Chairman Scott Kilbreth told the board the town has asked Fortier several times to move several vehicles and other items from the dam site the town took by eminent domain in July.

Hutchins said the town will post notices in newspapers next week that the property is about to be declared unclaimed.

In other matters before the board Thursday night, the board voted to pay $20,000 of a $27,000 bill from Wright-Pierce engineers for preliminary work on the Village Ridge property purchased by the town to create a new village center. The money will be taken from surplus and repaid after the town sells the property.

The land off Edmunds Road was to accommodate 40 homes for residents who lost theirs in a flood of the village along Routes 140 and 108 in 2003. The town bought the land and cleared it, but voters last year refused to finance development.

Kilbreth said he couldn’t understand why the bill had not been paid since the work had been contracted for early last year before he came on the board. Interest amounts to about $1,400.

Selectman Lisa Cummings said some of the money had been paid, and it was on the agenda for each meeting, but no action had been taken.

Selectmen signed papers for the last Federal Emergency Management Agency buyout of a home in the flooded village.

Village relocation project coordinator Diane Ray said this was the first time that an appraisal didn’t meet the buyout price. The offer to Ernest Edmonds is contingent on FEMA paying the full appraisal price of $140,000. FEMA had offered $87,000 to the homeowner.

Copy the Story Link