NEW VINEYARD — Should the town maintain the Files Road, or should it be a private road?

That is the question that residents living on the road and the town’s Board of Selectmen are arguing. “We’re not sure what it is,” said Chairman Fay Adams when asked about the road’s status at Monday’s selectmen’s meeting.

“We’ve had threatening letters from an anonymous person threatening to sue us,” said selectman Frank Forster. “It’s been a real fiasco.”

From the selectmen’s perspective

Forster explained that the problems with the road began after the winter of 2013-14, when the town encountered a problem with the snowplow turnaround at the end of the dead end road. The problem, he said, arose because resident John Rearick had planted saplings near the turnaround and the truck driver was having a problem maneuvering with the trees placed where they were.

Rearick insisted that the saplings stay in place, said Forster.

“He wanted us to quit knocking them over,” Adams added.

The next task was for the town to find out where the road’s center line was “so we could figure out where the right of way ended.”

The town contacted ACME Engineering, who investigated county records and discovered that Files Road wasn’t a town-owned road. So, the selectmen contacted the town’s attorney and asked what to do.

They were instructed to have residents sign paperwork agreeing to a survey by ACME, in which residents would pay the $3,000 fee for the work. The amount was to be evenly divided amongst all of the residents on the road.

“We are innocent. We did nothing wrong,” Adams emphasized. “I thought $3,000 was a fair price.”

By this point, said Adams, the town had already spent $1,700 in legal fees. 

“We did diligently try to satisfy him,” she said of Rearick. “We were trying to work it out.”

When asked how many roads the town actually owned, selectmen responded that they weren’t sure. “We’ve never researched it,” said Forster.

Files Road is not a through road, he pointed out. Legally, because it is not a through road and not town-owned, the town isn’t obligated to maintain it.

Adams said that residents were concerned that after paying the fee for the survey, they would be at the mercy of a town meeting vote by residents as to whether or not the town would accept Files Road as a town road. 

“We said we’d support it as a town road,” she said, although selectmen also pointed out that they couldn’t guarantee the outcome of a town meeting vote.

Adams said she had mailed a copy of the attorney’s letter to the road’s residents asking them to agree to pay the survey fee. The residents did return the letter to the town, she said, agreeing to pay the fee, but it didn’t include the signatures of everyone on the road.

Also, said Adams, it was “completely reworded” from what the town’s lawyer had presented. In order for the process to continue, she said, everyone on the road must sign the letter as it was originally presented to them by the town.

Files Road residents disagree with selectmen

John and Dorothy Pedano noted that selectmen had contacted them last summer asking if they could put fill on their property. Additionally, a neighbor had contacted selectmen and wanted to know where his property ended and the road began.

The Pedano’s said that the road’s residents were angered and baffled when selectmen decided not to maintain the road.

“They tried to claim it never was a town road,” said Dorothy Pedano. “Why were they plowing and grading it for 40-some years?”

The Pedano’s accused the selectmen of forcing the road’s residents to pay attorney’s fees on top of the surveying fees, which, they claim, is why the amount is $3,000.

Last winter, residents had to pay a private contractor to plow the road, which is about a quarter of a mile long.

“They told our road commissioner, the selectmen did, not to go on that road and do any work on it,” said Dorothy Pedano.

With no town maintenance, the Pedano’s and other residents are worried about washouts on the gravel road, and other maintenance problems that would force them to pay more than they could afford to have a private contractor come in and fix it.

A former road commissioner weighs in

“We have maintained it ever since I’ve been in town,” said a 64-year resident of New Vineyard, Earl Luce, Jr. Luce was the Road Commissioner for the town until he recently resigned.

“I went up and graded it for the people last year,” he said of work he put in on the Files Road. “They (the town) didn’t plow or sand it or anything last winter.”

Luce said he was unaware of the town owning any road other than the road that goes to the transfer station, which crosses town land. The rest, he said, are town ways.

He said that he stepped down from his position because of conflicts with the Board of Selectmen.

“I worked with this board for 20-some odd years,” he stated. “This board is a different breed. They’re making their own plans.”

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