OTISFIELD — The Board of Selectmen agreed to accept a 4-inch stack of papers from Kristen Roy, but have told the cell tower ordinance antagonist it’s time for her to get a lawyer.

“If you want to challenge the town, attorney up,” Selectman Rick Micklon said after Roy plunked the notebook filled with questions and arguments concerning the proposed wireless telecommunications facility siting ordinance on the selectmen’s table at Wednesday night’s meeting.

Roy asked that the documents be reviewed by the town’s legal counsel.

Selectmen say it has been reviewed and commented on by legal counsel, John Maloney of the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments and others three times, and Roy’s ideas have been proven wrong.

“This borders on the ridiculous,” Micklon said of the request. “Get your own attorney.” 

The town pays its legal counsel $310 an hour.

Each question has been answered by legal counsel or Maloney, but Roy said their interpretation of the questions and reading of the statutes “is wrong.”

“As far as this board is concerned, you’re wrong,” Micklon said.

Roy was a plaintiff in a longstanding battle to stop a U.S. Cellular telecommunications tower from being erected on Scribner Hill in 2012 because of what she called the town’s “lack of due process” in approving the application.

Otisfield spent nearly $50,000 to defend itself against legal action by a group of residents calling themselves Friends of Scribner Hill. The group, including Roy, legally challenged the permitting process for the application.

The legal issue died when U.S. Cellular withdrew its application and the Oxford County Superior Court dismissed the case as moot.

Friends of Scribner Hill members said the Board of Appeals made mistakes and violated the town ordinance. While selectmen did not agree with that, they and others did agree that the Wireless Telecommunications Facility Siting Ordinance had faults and needed to be revised.

Since that time, a committee has worked to revise the ordinance. It will go before voters at the annual town meeting at 9 a.m. Saturday, June 27, at the Community Hall on Route 121.

Roy is challenging the proposal saying, in part, that the town should designate facilities in tax increment financing districts. She also questions whether the ordinance will override other ordinances such as Shoreland and Site Plan Review,  plus a myriad of other questions.

She claims the town is setting itself up to be challenged.

“It would only come up again if you decide to bring us to court again,” Micklon said.

The document was accepted by the board only to affirm it as public record.

ldixon@sunmedialgroup.net

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