Dear Readers,

On Monday, May 13, Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett and his deputies arrested a Jefferson man following an armed stand-off triggered by a property dispute.

No one was hurt. No shots were fired. A tense situation was smoothed over and an immediate threat was resolved.

The property dispute will be decided later in court.

It was a situation that could have turned into a blood bath.

Not far from the Jefferson-Waldoboro town line lies Goose Hill Road. For several years, town officials have tried to dig drainage ditches alongside the road, but a resident, Victoria Burbank, objected.

She told the Kennebec Journal last October that she bought the property in 1979 and the road was just a narrow dirt road. The town argued it was wider. That meant they would have to take some of her property to dig the ditches.

To make a long story short, in the next several years, the town argued with the Burbanks and the lawyers got involved. The town was told to hold a referendum on whether they should “take” the sliver of property from the Burbanks without compensation.

On November 6, they did just that. And the process began.

Monday, Jefferson's road commissioner, Alan Johnson, and his road crew arrived to ditch the roadside. Victoria Burbank's son, John, 34, objected. And he was armed. The town road crew called the sheriff for help.

Brackett said his deputies talked to both sides in the morning and thought the situation had been resolved. Later in the day, it flared up again and John Burbank again challenged Johnson and the road crew.

Brackett's deputies were called again. To say it was a tense situation would be an understatement. You had a family defending what they believed was their property against the town's efforts to claim part of it. They were armed.The town called the sheriff to enforce its rights. That put law enforcement in the middle.

As deputies and game wardens surrounded the house, Brackett's deputies were able to call the Burbanks and begin the process of trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution.

After an hour of so on the phone, John Burbank agreed to surrender and he was arrested. He was taken to jail and charged with violating several laws.

The charges against Burbank will be decided later in court. So too will his family's property dispute with the town.

You can read more about what happened in an article by reporter John Maguire that appears elsewhere in the paper.

In other towns and other locations, similar disputes have turned into bloodbaths with gunfire erupting and people wounded and killed. We all have seen stories like this on the evening network news.

Monday, because of the professionalism and caution of Brackett, his deputies and other law enforcement, the situation was resolved without a shot being fired. No one was hurt or killed.

Their performance in a tense situation merits a sincere thank you from all of us.