GREENBUSH, Maine — Town officials plan to seek a civil court remedy by Dec. 1 to what Code Enforcement Officer Jerry Davis calls one of the worst illegal junkyards he has ever seen.
After being told that there was nothing in William and Susan Corbett’s Cardville Road backyard but a few washers and dryers, Davis said he found as many as 50 unregistered vehicles, a half-demolished mobile home, as much as 8 tons of vehicle parts and 20 to 30 snowmobiles on the nearly 2-acre property.
“This would be one of the worst, considering that they said there wasn’t anything back there,” Davis said Friday. “I actually filled the memory to two digital cameras.”
Davis said he received a court order allowing the search, which was conducted on Oct. 19 with a Penobscot County Deputy Sheriff David Duplisea standing by.
He needed the court order because the Corbetts declined to allow him to look in the backyard after allowing him to inspect the front yard. Davis has alleged that he already had found enough evidence of what would be legally defined as a junkyard in the front yard — three junked vehicles. A line of trees blocked the view of the backyard from Cardville Road, he said.
“No wonder they [the homeowners] didn’t want me back there,” he said.
The Corbetts have submitted to him a cleanup plan of correction, which the town’s attorney is reviewing, but Davis said he and the town attorney more than likely will seek another administrative order from Bangor District Court to ensure that no more time is wasted.
The alleged Cardville Road violations constitute the third case Davis has had to take to court since town leaders deemed fixing blighted properties a priority about a year ago.
In the other two cases, he found cut-up culverts, car parts, mattresses, excessive numbers of propane bottles, tires, junked vehicles — including a torn-apart camper — and mounds of trash on small residential lots at 190 and 198 Military Road, respectively.
The owners of both properties agreed during a pre-court hearing on Oct. 8 that they would clean up their properties within 60 days or face court action, Davis said.
Under state law, violators could face fines between $100 and $2,500 a day on receipt of initial letters advising them of violations if they fail to clear illegal junkyards or devise a plan within 15 days. Davis had been trying for several months to clear the properties — in one case, for about three years, he has said.
Davis also is Lincoln’s code enforcement officer and has been working to correct blighted properties there for several years.