HARTFORD — A family dispute that has spilled over into town and school district business, and includes harassment orders and a homemade barricade that’s preventing a school bus and emergency vehicles from turning around, has yet to be resolved.
Hartford selectmen tabled addressing the Camp Road issue further at their Thursday, Oct. 1, meeting after turnaround property owner Paul Bernier walked out of the meeting when his niece, Angel Boutot, showed up at the meeting.
“I can’t be in the same room as her and she knows that,” Bernier said about Boutot as he got up to leave the Town Office with an arm full of paperwork. “I am sure I will have police knocking at my door in an hour.”
“Just for the record, the deal is no contact,” Boutot said after her uncle left the building.
Bernier was awarded a civil order of harassment against his niece’s husband, Adam Boutout, for which he was represented by attorney Sarah Glynn. In addition to Bernier’s original order, three additional orders were issued to prevent Bernier and the Boutouts, including their children, from having contact with each other.
The orders are one of the reasons Bernier erected the barricade on his property on Aug. 31. He also put it up because there was broken glass and nails in the turnaround and didn’t want flat tires.
Currently, Regional School Unit 10 and emergency vehicles are using a different turnaround further down the road on Bernier’s property. He previously noted he allows the town and school district to use his property as a courtesy and said he doesn’t have a contract for the larger turnaround’s use.
“[Bernier] seemed to feel that he did not have a beef with the town,” Holman said at the meeting last week. “How he explained it to me there was a protection of harassment order – that was put it on the Boutot family including the children. His concern was if the children were on the bus then they would be on his property and it would be a violation of protection order.”
RSU 10 Director Richard Dyer – who was in attendance at last week’s meeting – was worried that the issue wouldn’t get resolved if the two parties continue to show up to meetings together without lawyers.
“As far as the town goes, the harassment order has nothing to do with the town,” Angel Boutout said.
“I will tell you what I told him. I don’t care what’s going on between you. My concern is for the town and public safety,” Holman said to Boutout.
Boutot answered that she agreed 100 percent.
“Wild horses could not drag me into a personal dispute like that,” Holman added.
Another issue selectmen will address is Bernier’s garage that built in the middle of the road after he was issued a permit in 2001. Town Clerk Lianne Bedard handed over the board a stack of papers on the matter.
“I think it’s going to take us a while to read through this,” Holman said, as she encouraged her colleagues to join her and read over the paperwork. She will continue to do research on the subject through Maine Municipal Association.
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