FARMINGTON – The Mt. Blue Regional School District is looking into a possible legal challenge of a right of way that for decades has been used by students and parents as a shortcut to the W.G. Mallett School from Perham Street in downtown Farmington.

Three property owners who abut the right of way contend the district’s easements across their properties are no longer valid and have put up a sign and barriers to discourage people from using the 15-foot wide lane. The residents use the way to park their cars and access their homes and a garage.

The Regional School Unit 9 board this week agreed to refer the issue to the district’s attorney and will discuss it again at a future meeting. On the town tax map, the lane is designated as a right of way.

“We feel (the district) has a right of way but we will let counsel look at this,” board Chairman Mark Prentiss said. “It will be very hard to close it off.”

The easements were part of an agreement years ago between the town and the school district that provided public access to two schools on the other side of the block. They were the former Farmington High School, now an office building, and the original Mallett School built in 1931. That school has now been replaced by a new facility.

Jeffrey Thompson and his wife, Jennifer Erickson, who live at 109 Perham St., Eloise Wallace at 111 Perham St., and Brian and Carol Taylor at 113 Perham St. are asking the district to strike the easements from their deeds.

In return, they would agree to allow a limited number of students to continue using the roadway until construction of the Quebec Street entrance to the new school is complete, according to a letter they sent to Superintendent Michael Cormier on Sept. 6.

The letter states their concerns are over student safety, the long-term value of their properties and liability in the event a student is injured by a vehicle while walking across their properties.

“It is a very congested area,” said Carol Taylor, whose family has owned the house for more than a century.

Monique Claverie, a school board member who lives on nearby High Street, said she walks her young daughter to the Mallett School every morning and uses the Perham Street shortcut because it saves time.

She said the “private drive” sign posted on a sawhorse and other obstacles put up to discourage people from using the lane are disconcerting since, for now, the right of way is legitimate.

“I walk my daughter to school every morning so I don’t feel there is a safety issue. It is more dangerous to walk past the seven driveways if we had to walk around to Middle Street,” she said.

The issue erupted the week before school started when Farmington highway workers painted a crosswalk across Perham Street that led directly to the lane.

Thompson said the district did not consult residents about the decision to open the lane for student use or to put in the crosswalk. He only learned of the plan when he asked one of the town employees doing the work what was going on.

He has since met with Cormier and other district officials, and has consulted an expert real estate law attorney.

“Our contention is that this driveway is private as indicated in our deeds, and use by the school was never requested,” he said.

“What concerns us is the lack of communication,” he said.

“We are at the mercy of a 150-year-old deed . . . and we would really like to have it reworded,” Taylor said.

The short road was originally maintained by the town but at some point, was discontinued. No formal town vote has been found, however, Taylor said.

Legally, when a road is discontinued, ownership reverts back to the abutting property owners.

Taylor told the board that after the town stopped maintaining it in the late 1970s, abutters took over the job. They have had it tarred and plow it every winter.

“Now it is just a driveway,” she said. “We have made it our own.”

Board member Claire Andrews of Farmington, who has used the driveway for years to walk her children to school, wondered what was the incentive for the district to give up a long-used right of way.

“You are asking us to give you a right of way and in exchange, you will allow students to use your property during construction,” she said.

Andrews asked if the owners were aware there was a right of way when they purchased their homes. She also said title searches on the properties that should have revealed the easements.

Thompson said he was told there was a right of way used 30 years ago but that the road had since been abandoned. Wallace said her title search did not mention the school’s right of way.

Thompson said they don’t want the issue to escalate and there are no plans to erect a gate, as his attorney has advised him.

In their letter, abutters said they were seeking a compromise to avoid “further difficulties and conflict.”

According to David Leavitt, the district’s director of support services, in 1960, the school district was formed and the town deeded its school properties to the new entity, School Administrative District 9. Those properties continue to be owned by the district, now known as Mt. Blue Regional School District, or RSU 9.

The easements are found in those 1960 documents, he said.

“They include a right of way to ‘Perham Court’,” he said.

Principal Tracy Williams said few students use the driveway and a monitor posted at the school side of the property has counted between two and four students/parents who use that route per day.