Alna selectmen and resident Jeff Spinney continue to square off over his boat ramp off Golden Ridge Road. Friday night, April 28, the board voted to authorize the town’s attorney to “file and pursue an appeal to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court” an April 19 Lincoln County Superior Court order.

According to that order, Spinney appealed town appeals board decisions, and the town asked the court to dismiss those appeals as untimely and on the basis they leave out the ramp project opponents who successfully appealed a Jan. 5, 2021 planning board decision; Spinney opposed the dismissal request and asked for more filing time. 

The order Justice Daniel Billings signed concludes Spinney has shown “good cause” for not appealing to the court sooner, because he believed his and selectmen’s January 2021 settlement deal was valid; it was not, a court went on to rule. “To allow the Town to induce Mr. Spinney to believe he had signed away his appeal rights under an invalid settlement agreement ... then bring an enforcement action after the appeal window had closed, would be manifestly unjust,” the April 19 order states. 

As for the planning board decision’s appellants to the appeals board, Billings found they can still be joined in the court matter as parties in interest. The justice then denied the town’s motion to dismiss, and said the town will tell the court who those appellants were. Billings extended Spinney’s filing deadline and said a new briefing schedule will be issued due to the delays the motions caused.

Selectmen’s decision to appeal to the state’s highest court was unanimous, and followed an executive, or closed door, session with town attorney David Kallin, First Selectman Ed Pentaleri said in a phone interview later Friday evening.

In late 2021, Kallin called for the ramp’s removal based on the appeals board’s March 2021 reversal of the planning board’s approval, according to Wiscasset Newspaper files. Billings’ April 19 order notes a land use enforcement action the town filed is still pending in Lincoln County District Court.

Spinney on Monday told Wiscasset Newspaper, “I will defend this as far as it needs to go.” He deferred other comment to his attorney, Kristin Collins, who cited taxpayer costs, predicted those will likely double in the matter, said if erosion controls are removed they would have to be reinstalled, and added: “Spinney has offered since day one to formalize the settlement agreement as a court judgment and put an end to this legal wrangling, but the Town will not relent.”

Collins said the first selectman fought the project as a private citizen before he joined the selectboard and “has now steered the Town into taking over his personal battle.”

Pentaleri told Wiscasset Newspaper, “I have no conflict of interest at all. I think my position has been clear from the beginning, and I think I was elected with everybody knowing that I believe that our ordinances should be enforced.”

Asked what the basis will be for the appeal to Maine Supreme Judicial Court, Pentaleri said that was discussed in the executive session and would not be appropriate to comment on.