By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

CASCO — The Casco Select Board put the brakes on accepting another public easement.

The board flat out said no to adopting another private road as a public easement to be maintained by the town during the winter. In fact, the board did not even put it up for a vote, although board members did discuss why the request was being denied. 

“We are way ‘behind the 8 ball’ on town roads. I don’t think the eight ball is even on the pool table at this point. In my mind, to consider any private roads becoming a town road would be irresponsible on our part. We have a lot of work to do, a lot of money to spend to get caught up,” Casco Chairman Scott Avery said. “I don’t know if we can spend enough to get caught up…Those are questions asked and answered at town meeting.”

“Right now, it wouldn’t be financially responsible” to take on another road, Avery concluded.   

Earlier in the conversation, Select Board member Robert MacDonald stated under what conditions the town might adopt a road.

“If the town wanted to even consider adopting more roads to be town roads, the road better be in great shape, have the right-of-ways, have the ditching, have the turn arounds so we are making sure we don’t have to go back before the 15-year mark,” MacDonald said.

At this point in time, the Town of Casco is in the process of transitioning from its winter-time road maintenance being done through a company contracted by the town to a public works department doing the job. This winter season, both the contractor C. Pond Plowing and the Public Works Director Mike Genest are in charge of plowing different areas of town.  

During a board meeting on Feb. 6, Casco Town Manager Anthony “Tony” Ward brought up something that happens every year: Requests to add a road to the town’s plowing list.

“Recently, we received two requests, asking to have private roads made into public roads,” Ward said, adding, “Any transition has to be approved at town meeting.”

Ward’s recommendation was later echoed by the select board. 

“My staff and I — all of us feel that taking on any public roads at this time when we are still trying to catch up on our maintenance of our current inventory would not be viable,” he said.

For now, the best policy is to say no. But, in the near future, an ordinance would put it in black and white for road associations and for residents hoping to get their road deemed as a public easement. 

“If you look at our ordinances, we have road construction requirements for subdivisions but not for going from a private way to a public way,” Ward said.  “As a longtime solution, whether it is this year or next year, is coming up with a true road ordinance that clearly defines what a public road should be . . . So, there is no more of this ambiguity of what the process should be.”

Selectman MacDonald said if the town adopted more private roads as public easements, there will be a lot of people coming before the board and asking for the same thing for their road.

“Not two,” Avery said.

“But 20,” said Selectman Grant Plummer, completing Avery’s sentence.

“We need a concrete plan. It has been on our wish list to put that together,” McDonald said.

“I don’t think we should take on any roads,” Avery interjected.

“I don’t think we could afford to,” MacDonald said. “We cannot afford to put another burden on the town. Not when we’ve got so many roads in such rough shape. Let’s face it, [if we accept these roads] those people on private roads are going to be the first to get in line because they don’t have a road association.”

Plummer provided some history of the town’s post-Pandemic shift from the 1972 Road Standards to the 2015 Road Standards.

“Mary [Fernandes] will remember this. We went through a lot of those in the past. And, we started digging into the private roads, and the private road agreements and the deeded easements,” he said. “We had 1972 road standards.”

According to the 1972 standards, the road width was 18-feet wide with a 3-foot shoulder, Ward said.

By adopting the 2015 Road Standards, the town has much more stringent set of rules for what would be accepted as a town road.

“In a lot of ways, how he [Former town manager Dave Morton] would answer those requests was, you have to meet this standard. It automatically pushes it off to the side. I don’t disagree there has to be policy and procedure on how to properly answer this question. How to go through process is needed,” he said. “My mind does two things. It says all that about policy and procedure. Then it says Every tax payer is going to say no. We can’t afford more roads.”

“Today, the answer is take a look at those road standards,” Plummer said.