PARIS — Oxford County commissioners will meet with the county’s attorneys Tuesday to discuss the suit over the ownership of a Mason Township road as well as a dispute between the county and Oxford Aviation.
The meeting will take place in executive session.
In Mason Township, two residents who own property on Tyler Road have claimed the county had abandoned the road and can’t give the U.S. Forest Service permission to widen the section that runs through their property.
The landowners, Cameron Wake and Celina Adams of Kittery, have filed a lawsuit in the matter after commissioners voted not to enter mediation with them.
Last year, Adams and Wake paid Belding Survey LLC of Harrison to investigate the road’s history. Belding concluded that their section of Tyler Road had last been maintained in 1959 or 1960 and by Maine law fit the requirements of statutory abandonment.
According to the county, the U.S. Forest Service worked on the road in the 1980s, less than 30 years ago. In Maine, statutory abandonment begins when a road hasn’t been maintained for 30 years.
Wake and Adams said they don’t mind the road being used as a right of way, but they don’t want the section running through their property to be altered. The U.S. Forest Service has said some resurfacing may be necessary to allow large lumber trucks through.
In the Oxford Aviation case, the county has accused the aircraft refurbishing firm of refusing to negotiate its lease in good faith, a charge that owner James Horowitz has denied.
Oxford Aviation, which leases the airport from the county, sued the county in 2008 for breaching the terms of its lease by failing to maintain the building. The suit was settled last year, and the county agreed to pay $250,000 to Oxford Aviation. Since then, the parties have continued to negotiate several issues in the lease.
Commissioners are also set to discuss the planned installation of a wood pellet heating system for the building. The county secured a grant to pay for the work and is working with a consultant on where the system will be placed.
The commission meets Tuesday at 9 a.m. at the Oxford County Courthouse.
Comments are no longer available on this story