LIVERMORE — Selectpersons Tuesday night, July, 18, reviewed a survey of Wyman Road which shows the road is aligned differently than originally planned.
As a result, the town will be snow blowing less of the road next winter while steps to discontinue the road to winter maintenance move forward. Christopher and Addie McHugh are the only residents on the road. The dead-end road has a 15% grade. Abutting landowners have different accesses to state Route 4.
Survey results seen Thursday night, July 20, show a change in location for the Wyman Road in Livermore as it is today and in the original plan. The darker area at left is state Route 4. The original Wyman Road layout is seen from upper left to bottom marked by solid lines. Addie and Christopher McHugh’s residence is the rectangle seen at right with the actual road/driveway marked by dashed lines. The original turnaround area is seen to the left of the residence. Pam Harnden/Livermore Falls Advertiser
Selectpersons took no action on closing Wyman Road to winter maintenance last September after receiving pushback from McHugh, his lawyer and others.
In October selectpersons voted to begin the process to discontinue a section of the road for winter maintenance. The board said it had an old tax map that indicated it was town property for only the first 135 feet. Officials voted to snow blow the town’s portion only instead of plowing it. The town had been plowing about 290 feet to a turnaround near the McHugh home.
In November, the board contracted with Jamie Roy of Livermore to snow blow the town’s section of Wyman Road. The two-year contract was based on 20 storms at $250 per storm each year with the work done as needed.
On Feb. 15 the Androscoggin County Commission voted that Livermore must continue plowing the length of the road. The McHughs had filed a petition appealing the town’s decision. Photos and a Maine Department of Transportation map were presented to the commission by McHugh’s attorney, Ron Guay, which he said did not agree with the town’s tax map showing the town’s portion to be only 135 feet long.
In March Selectpersons said Wyman Road would continue to be snow blown this winter as plowing couldn’t be started then. Because the road had not been plowed, getting a plow down the road would not have been possible.
Main-Land Development Consultants Inc. in Livermore Falls prepared the Wyman Road survey.
Main-Land found what they feel was the original road, Chair Mark Chretien said.
Wyman Road was part of the Cottage Terrace subdivision dating back to the 1920s, according to Sept. 30, 2010, special meeting minutes. The subdivision was never built, the road is very steep and finding room to put snow is an ongoing issue, according to that document.
The survey shows Wyman Road as laid out for the subdivision is different than the area used now to access the McHughs’ home. The original road is about twice as wide with a roughly triangular section of the two overlapping near state Route 4.
The road was supposed to go in a different direction from Route 4, selectperson Jeremy Emerson said. “No wonder why it’s not on the old maps,” he added.
“The road is not even where it was supposed to be,” Richmond agreed.
Chretien said he and Roger Ferland, highway foreman, would stake the new area to be snow blown. The McHughs would be sent a certified letter indicating the survey results and the town’s plans moving forward.
“So it is even less than we were doing this year,” Emerson noted.
“I can’t wait until Wyman Road is closed,” Emerson said.
The town needs to make sure of the timeline [for discontinuing the road to winter maintenance], Richmond stated. “There’s a certain process you have to follow,” he added.
“If we do it now, we are all set,” Chretien noted.
Maine law requires a seven-step process to discontinue a road, according to information shared in October 2022. The information states if an abutter ‘s property is not accessible by another way, the process needs to pause for a year to allow the property owners to confirm private access to property.
After a year the process may be resumed with voter approval needed at a town meeting, the information notes. The earliest that could happen is in April 2024, Richmond said in October.
“We have to [snow blow] it one more year,” Chretien replied.
“We are lucky Wyman Road didn’t wash out this year,” Perkins said.
The section of the current road the town will be responsible for snow blowing this winter is an odd-shaped parcel near state Route 4.
It is about 114 feet long on the southern side and 138 feet on the northern side, Highway Foreman Roger Ferland said Friday.
Last winter the town did about 137 feet before the commissioners’ ruling that the entire road had to be plowed, he noted. There was no turnaround needed due to the road being snow blown, he said.
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