Report by Miryam Ehrlich Williamson on August 27 East Rum Brook Road Hearing

Part two of the selectboard's hearing on whether to
discontinue maintenance on East Rum Brook Road will
convene at 7:30p Monday, as part of the board's
bi-weekly meeting.  The first hearing session took
place at the August 27 meeting.

Also at the August 27 meeting, the board agreed to move
their meeting time to 6:30p for the rest of the year,
at the request of Town Clerk Jeannette Fellows.

First to testify at the August 27 hearing was Ted Cady,
chair of the planning board, who said the "public
necessity and convenience no longer requires
maintenance" of the road. It's a deadend road, he said,
with no building lots "uniquely" on it.  A potential
building lot has frontage on Richmond Road.  A
serious washout has separated the east and west ends of
the road, making impossible passage between Richmond
Road on the east and Old Winchester Road on the west.
The 1987 town meeting voted to discontinue the
washed-out part of the road.

Two other lots exist, Cady said, but they have only 50
feet of frontage on East Rum Book Road --- 250 feet
less than current zoning requires.  They are assessed
not as building lots, but as backland. A cabin on one
of the lots, which predated the current zoning law,
burned down in 2003. Cady said the owners lost their
right to rebuild it at the end of two years, and would
have to apply for a permit to do so. He said the lots
are too small to hold both a well and septic system.
Therefore, he noted, although they are theoretically
legal building lots, "they are not buildable."

The planning board chair pointed out that the road has
not been maintained for more than 20 years.  He
stressed that the board was asked only to discontinue
maintenance, not to discontinue the road itself.
Resuming maintenance, should that become desirable in
the future, would be easy to accomplish, he added.

The board heard a letter from Tim Kilhart, highway
superintendent, confirming that the town has not
plowed, sanded, or maintined the road for many years.
He added that the cost to bring the road up to standard
would be "very high."  A letter from Mary Williamson of
the Open Space Committee support discontinuing
maintenance, but suggested the culvert under the road
be maintained to prevent additional washout.  She also
suggested that the town might dump stone in the washed
out area to keep Rum Brook Road open to hikers and
walkers.

Harriet Green, who with her late husband owned the
cabin that burned down, spoke to oppose discontinuance
of maintenance.  She testified that people told her
someone from the fire department had said they'd drive
around until it burned down because the site was so
prone to vandalism. She said she reported to the chief
of police the names of the people who set fire to it,
but nothing was done. She knew who set the fire, she
testified, because people she knew saw some items taken
from the cabin in possession of the perpetrators.

Janet Conover, a developer and clerk of the Zoning
Board of Appeals, claimed to have cleaned out the
culvert with her bare hands one bitter cold day and
said she wanted the highway department to "maintain the
frontage rights of people who live there."  Conover
also mentioned the existence of potential building
lots. If emergency vehicles cannot get to these
properties, the building inspector cannot issue a
building permit, she noted.

She said the town is subject to liability for allowing
15-18 yards of silt erosion. Coleen Paul also opposed
discontinuing maintenance, saying it is a beautiful
spot for snowmobile use.

In response to a question Fred Dupere, town counsel,
said that by voting to discontinue maintenance, the
selectboard would simply affirm the situation that
exists. "You have more liability by not maintaining it
than you would by discontinuing maintnenance," he
added. He agreed to contact the Attorney General's
office to get answers to specific question: whether the
town could perform mainenance and repairs even if
maintenance is discontinued, and whether private
citizens could make repairs on a road officially not
being maintained.

According to the Sept 10 agenda, the hearing will again
be adjourned after about 20 minutes so the selectboard
can go into executive session "to discuss several
potential pieces of litigation."  This apparently
relates to some threats of legal action that surfaced
at the first hearing that needed to be discussed with
town counsel before the board votes on whether to
discontinue maintenance.

After the executive session, the selectboard is to come
back into public session to vote on the subject of the
hearing.

Miryam Williamson reporting