OTISFIELD — A Cobb Hill Road homeowner who challenged the Planning Board’s granting of a permit to U.S. Cellular to construct a communications tower on Scribner Hill Road said Wednesday that he and others are raising funds to hire an attorney to appeal the decision to the Maine Superior Court.

The Zoning Board of Appeals denied John Poto’s administrative appeal on March 20. He has 45 days to appeal the ruling to the Superior Court.

In his administrative appeal Poto said that the Planning Board did not do its due diligence in the permitting process that allows U.S. Cellular to construct the town’s first telecommunications tower, a 180-foot cell tower off Scribner Road. Poto said the Planning Board misinterpreted the town’s wireless telecommunications facility siting ordinance.

“It is obvious from reading the Findings of Facts that the Appeals Board misunderstood the appeal and chose to ignore the evidence presented,” Poto said in an email response to a Sun Journal question Wednesday. “We are a group of hardworking citizens who don’t have unlimited funds to hire an attorney and we are attempting to raise the funds necessary. It is very unfortunate that the Officials of the Town of Otisfield have chosen not to help us protect the scenic beauty that attracted us to the town.”

The Board of Appeals met on March 6 to hear more than three hours of testimony on the administrative appeal submitted by Poto, who is a former Planning Board member, and issued their “findings of fact” following 90 minutes of fact-finding and deliberation on March 20.

In the decision, the appeals board made 23 individual findings of fact. Each was read into the record and individually voted on and discussed by the board.

The findings of fact included statements relating to previous testimony by Poto and others, such as the code enforcement officer saying he was satisfied that he had sufficient evidence that the intent of both the cell tower ordinance and the town’s comprehensive plan was followed.

“It was difficult, but I feel we made the right decision,” Zoning Board of Appeals member Anne Pastore said at the time. She, interim Chairwoman Marianne Izzo-Morin, interim Vice Chairwoman Sharon Matthews and alternate member Don Mixer made the announcement before some 35 residents and town officials in the Otisfield Community Hall on Route 121.

The appeals board, which is quasi-judicial, had only two choices — to determine that the appellant did or did not prove his case, Selectman Rick Micklon said. The appellant’s only recourse now is to appeal the decision to the Maine Superior Court.

The Planning Board’s permit, which was issued on Jan. 17, contained four conditions, including that the company submit a design for a fence at the bottom of the access road to prevent people from going up the hill to the tower base and that a bond be submitted that would allow the town to dismantle the structure if U.S. Cellular abandoned it.

The Planning Board also required that the testing of the generators be done only Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and that the town’s public safety departments be allowed to utilize the tower.

The town has an ordinance that provides a process and set of standards for the construction of wireless telecommunications facilities that in part is designed to protect the scenic and visual character of the community and ensure that the town can fairly and responsibly protect the public health, safety and welfare of residents, but it did not have a communications tower application until now. Under the ordinance, a site plan and scenic assessment are among the documents that must be submitted by the applicant.

Construction of the tower, which will accommodate space for other cellular companies and the Otisfield Fire Department’s communication equipment, is set to start sometime in June and take five weeks to complete.

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