OTISFIELD — A group of residents is taking the town, U.S. Cellular and KJK Wireless to court in an attempt to stop construction of a 180-foot- cellular tower on Scribner Hill.
The Friends of Scribner Hill will seek to overturn the Board of Appeals’ March 20 denial of the group’s appeal of the Planning Board decision approving a permit to construct the tower. The group has asked the judge to remand the decision to grant the permit back to the Planning Board for another full hearing.
In turn, the defendants have asked that the suit be dismissed.
The two parties will meet with their attorneys and a judge in Oxford County Superior Court on July 9.
Selectman Rick Micklon said the board was not surprised at the group’s action.
“They told us all along they were seeking legal counsel. That’s why we brought (to the appeals hearing) one of the our attorneys,” he said. “We wanted to make sure the appeals board did it right.”
On March 6, the appeals board heard testimony on the administrative appeal submitted by John Poto, a Cobb Hill Road resident and former Planning Board member. Poto asserted that the Planning Board misinterpreted the town’s wireless telecommunications facility siting ordinance when it granted KJK Wireless, representing the permitting interests of U.S. Cellular, a permit on Jan. 17 for the tower.
Poto, Kristen Roy, James Gregory and Friends of Scribner Hill, who signed Poto’s administrative appeal, are named as the plaintiffs.
In the decision, the appeals board made 23 individual “findings of fact.” They included statements relating to testimony given at the administrative appeals hearing and at previous public meetings.
Micklon said the U.S. Cellular attorney, M. Kelly Matzen of Trafton & Matzen LLP of Auburn, will act the lead attorney. Attorney Paul Saucier of the Auburn law firm Bernstein and Shur is representing the town.
“We’re in more of a supportive role,” said Micklon of the decision to let Matzen take the lead role legally.
The plaintiffs claim in part that the town did not follow its own communications tower ordinance and violated freedom of access laws.
The defendants have asked the plaintiffs, suit to be dismissed, based on the claim that the plaintiffs did not file their appeal within the mandatory 45-day period following the March 20 administrative hearing decision.
The Planning Board’s Jan. 17 permit contained four conditions, including that the company submit a design for a fence at the bottom of the access road to prevent people from going up the hill to the tower base and that a bond be submitted that would allow the town to dismantle the structure if U.S. Cellular abandoned it.
The Planning Board also required that generator testing be done only Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and that the town’s public safety departments be allowed to utilize the tower.
The town has an ordinance that provides a process and set of standards for the construction of wireless telecommunications facilities. It is, in part, designed to protect the scenic and visual character of the community and ensure that the town can fairly and responsibly protect the public health, safety and welfare of residents. Under the ordinance, a site plan and scenic assessment are among the documents that must be submitted by the applicant.
Construction of the tower, which will accommodate space for other cellular companies and the Otisfield Fire Department’s communication equipment, was set to start in June and take five weeks to complete.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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