More than three years after a dispute arose over changes to a small privately owned boat launch in a tiny midcoast town, the controversy is grinding on in court while a selectman opposed to the changes has been barred from participating in the town’s legal deliberations.
Jeffry Spinney, who lives on Golden Ridge Road in the Lincoln County town of Alna, wanted to make erosion-control modifications to the small boat launch on his property, located on a tidal section of the Sheepscot River. He applied for permits to do so, was granted them and made the improvements including lining the ramp with gravel. But the town later reversed itself and tried to revoke its approval — even though the town’s code enforcement officer and Maine Department Environmental Protection, which regulates development in shoreland zones, have not cited him for any violations.
Spinney is suing Alna in Lincoln County Superior Court, arguing that the town deceived him by getting him to sign an invalid agreement that he thought allowed him to improve the boat launch.
The fight is both costing the town money and exposing the pitfalls of small-town governance, in which elected or appointed officials may not have the authority they think they do. Spinney’s efforts to make minor improvements to his riverside boat ramp have been waylaid by an invalid agreement with the town, an improperly appointed appeals board member and a select board member with a conflict of interest.
After the initial approval, three new members — all who’d voiced concerns that Spinney’s project could harm the river — were elected to the town’s select board in 2021. Among them was First Selectman Ed Pentaleri, who tried to stop the project before he was elected.
The legal battle is costing the town somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000, according to Spinney’s supporters. Those escalating costs led to a citizen’s complaint filed with the town in May that said Pentaleri’s ongoing active opposition to Spinney’s project violated the town’s code of ethics. The town did not respond to questions about the legal costs of pursuing Spinney in court.
“For certain reasons I think elected officials have had tunnel vision on this case for the last couple of years,” said Kristin Collins, Spinney’s attorney. “Maybe it’s time for a fresh look at the wisdom of having discarded the settlement.”
This month the town’s two other select board members — Steven Graham and Coreysha Stone — held a hearing on the ethics complaint against Pentaleri and decided he had a conflict because of his history of public opposition to Spinney’s project, which includes multiple letters published by weekly newspapers.
The select board voted to recuse Pentaleri from deliberations over the project since he violated the town’s ethics policy.
Meanwhile, competing legal complaints are pending with no end in sight.
In one claim, Spinney argued the town failed to live up to the terms of the agreement he reached with selectmen over how the boat launch would be used. The terms of the original agreement restrict him to using it only for non-motorized boats and limiting use of the ramp to just a few recreational boaters.
The town, however, successfully argued in court that the previous selectboard never had the authority to approve such an arrangement, which only a planning board or appeals board can do. It also said that because the town’s appeals board later overruled the planning board approval, the boat launch improvements are in violation of the town’s shoreland zoning ordinance.
That appeals board decision on March 4, 2021, is a major point of contention in the dispute. Spinney says the 2-1 vote in favor of the appellants is invalid because one of the members is not a legal Maine resident and should not have been on the board — a point the appeals board later acknowledged.
The town contends that the appeals board ruling stands because when Spinney asked the board to reconsider, his request was met with a 1-1 tie vote, which lacked the required majority support needed to reconsider the appeal.
Although the town argued that Spinney didn’t have the right to contest the appeals board decision in court because he didn’t meet filing deadlines, the court has since sided with the boat launch owner.
Justice Daniel Billings, presiding in Lincoln County Superior Court, ruled in an April 19 decision that Spinney has shown good cause why his appeal should be considered.
“There are extraordinary circumstances that work an injustice here,” Billings wrote. “To allow the Town to induce Mr. Spinney to believe he had signed away his appeal rights under an invalid settlement agreement, wait for the appeal period to run, then bring an enforcement action after the appeal window had closed would be manifestly unjust.”
The town appealed Billings’ ruling to the state supreme court, but the higher court upheld Billings’ decision on June 13. The case now goes back to Lincoln County Superior Court, where Spinney and the town will debate whether the town’s missteps mean that Spinney should be allowed to keep the improvements he made to the boat launch.
Mark Robinson, a spokesman for Spinney and taxpayers who are concerned about the amount of money the town is spending on the dispute, said it could be another year before the matter is resolved.