STOCKTON SPRINGS, Maine — A dispute over private property rights, the actions of the town’s elected officials and a perceived threat to the character of a much loved neighborhood are creating consternation in Stockton Springs.
“There’s an assumption that the town manager and town officials are hiding something,” outgoing Town Manager Joe Hayes said last week. “I have nothing to hide.”
That’s not necessarily what some residents of Middle Street believe. They are afraid that a new seafood business could bring heavy truck traffic to their quiet neighborhood.
“We understand anybody, in this economy, trying to make a living,” said Jerome Weiner. “But it was the process that was used that we’re against.”
At the root of the dispute is local businesswoman Holly Wyman’s desire to move the wholesale lobster business she owns with fiance David Rice. HD & Sons Seafood now is operated out of Main Street Market in Stockton Springs, a business they also run. But Wyman and Rice asked the town last summer to change the zoning of a portion of a residential district so that they could run it out of their waterfront property on School Street. The move would save them money and allow them to expand their business a bit, the couple said this week.
“We’re just looking to run a business and employ people,” Rice said. “This community should be allowed to be built up. It always was a working waterfront.”
Wyman requested that the town hold a special town meeting to vote on the zoning change, which the selectmen agreed to do. She also paid the town $700 to offset costs related to the meeting, including advertising, a moderator and staff overtime.
On Oct. 12, residents voted 46-45 in favor of the change. The special town meeting drew more people than the annual town meetings usually do, according to officials.
Among those present were three of Wyman’s neighbors, Weiner, Paula Lucia and Kristen Johnson, who believe that opponents to the project have not been given a fair shake by the town.
“All the neighbors who are going to be impacted by this are concerned about the quality of life issue,” Johnson said. “What we’re upset about is the town government. We’re not upset about Holly.”
They are planning to attend a Stockton Springs planning board meeting Wednesday night, when the board may take action on Wyman’s request to construct a 40-by-60-foot outbuilding on her property.
“It’s the first time we’ll be able to ask questions,” Weiner said.
The big question has to do with truck traffic. They would like to know how many trucks will be driving through to pick up seafood from HD & Sons, at what time of day and how fast they’ll be moving. The neighbors want their peaceful neighborhood to remain that way.
“We just want the officials to set the regulations up,” Lucia said. “We want them to uphold it.”
According to Wyman and Rice, they own three seafood trucks that will come to the business. Additionally, a tractor-trailer from Canada will stop by once a day during the busy lobster season, July through early November, they said.
“We’re here to support community. We would like community support for this project,” Wyman said.
Another question some of the opposing neighbors have for their officials has to do with whether Wyman and Rice should have been allowed to pay for the special town meeting this fall. They contend that because the couple paid for the meeting, they were allowed to choose when it was held and therefore exerted influence over the outcome.
Voters cast ballots during the meeting, but absentee votes were not allowed — which is usual for an open town meeting, Hayes said.
More residents have requested Freedom of Access Act documents pertaining to the meeting than for any other issue in his eight-year tenure as town manager. He said he disagrees with those who think that the town allowed something that may not be proper.
“If you’re going to ask for a special town meeting, why should the taxpayers pay for it?” he asked. “Special town meetings aren’t free.”
Town attorney Kristin Collins said there are no laws that prohibit what the town did.
“The fact is, under the law, a townsperson or anyone can contribute money towards a municipal expense,” she said.
But Maine Muncipal Association attorney Michael Stultz has a different view.
“Keeping the money suggested inappropriate influence on the choosing of the date and time of the October 12 town meeting,” he wrote in a Nov. 12 letter sent to the Stockton Springs Board of Selectmen after the board had requested his opinion. “Municipal officers should consider calling for re-vote of the October 12 meeting; and regardless of whether a second vote is called, the Town should pay for its own election costs.”
Collins said Stultz’s opinion is just that.
“It’s not like it was a ruling from the court,” she said. “At this point, we consider it to be a closed issue.”
Wyman said the idea that there was something improper about the special town meeting left her “at a loss for words.”
“If we were the ones who wanted to have the meeting, we should pay for it,” Rice said.
The public hearing and planning board meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 4, at the lower level of the Stockton Springs town office.
Something smells ‘fishy’.
I don’t think so, the only thing that might of been fishy is allowing them to pick the time for the meeting but it says that they had more attendance at the special meeting than the regular meetings. If you call a special meeting for a personal reason for your own benefit there is no reason why you shouldn’t pay to defray the costs. I think people are seeing something when it’s cut and dry. Though the neighbors have a genuine concern over increased traffic, it doesn’t seem like it is actually going to be that much an increase. We had a logger using our street last year and there are many houses, not one complaint and it wasn’t an inconvenience at all. If they got the space to do it without obstructing traffic and the town voted in their favor why not let them run their business from home.
If what you say means that that’s legal in town meeting law (I’ve been out of state for 30 yrs), and the people directly affected don’t mind (I wouldn’t want to live near a seafood plant), then full speed forward! :-)
Typical, no one wants to live near a seafood plant but they all want the seafood! Do I dare add at an ungodly low price as well.
Of course everyone wants to pay less for everything. That’s why everything is imported.
But the smell, in a residential neighborhood, is for them to decide.
In the days before 95 was built, everyone had to drive through Lincoln to get to the Pike in Augusta. It was known as Stinkin’ Linckin’ because of the paper mill (the smell was awful). But that’s what was supporting the town and they didn’t even smell it any more anyway. Good for them! But to ask someone to bring that into their area should be their choice and theirs only. Otherwise, I’m sure there would be a better location, maybe where the trucks wouldn’t be rumbling thru, too. Don’t know the area, so my opinion is only worth 2 cents anyway….G’nite
Woe, sounds like a successful business, too bad the not in my back yard attitude. How fast the trucks will be moving, what is the speed limit? Let them expand their business!
SURE, let them. Unless it was next to your house. It’s a residential neighborhood, not commercial. You want to run a business, run it in a commercially zoned area, not residential.
Sounds almost like a town meeting should be called…
…oh, wait.
“It was always a working waterfront”. It sounds like it used to be commercial, and they are wecome to move to Bangor, next door. In the article, the complaints and concerns were about heavy truck traffic, not the business itself. Traffic is easy to fix. Zoning laws are modified all ot the time, to stimulate business.
Wyman says “we’re here to support community”. But she offers nothing towards the community. Unless you consider having smelly, dirty diesel trucks running thru a residential neighborhood to a smelly fish business in a residentail neighborhood. Rice & Wyman are concerned about their bottom line, first & foremost, not their residential neighborhood. Did I mention residential???
A “smelly” fish business?
On the coast of Maine?
I think an ordinance banning low tide should be next.
And I’ll just bet that when the “smelly dirty FED-EX or UPS truck ” shows up on your doorstep that ‘s is perfectly ok. Those trucks run on diesel as well. And FYI Trucks carrying lobsters are regulated carriers and must conform to cleanliness standards just as your local grocery store. They’re carrying consumable food items. There is no difference in the eyes of the FDA.
And I wonder what the value of your house would be worth if a fish business opened next to it? Probably wouldn’t go up now, would it? In fact, you prob wouldn’t be able to sell it. Rice & Wyman have 1 interest in mind, and it’s not “supporting the community” or “employing people”. No way should that area have been rezoned to commercial.
A “fish business?
Erm, this is Maine.
How is this any different than a “smelly” farm business opening up? When you buy a piece of property there are no guarantees that the value will go up, just because a project is going to “possibly” cause a few property values to fall the entire economic impact should be looked at. If the net result is a positive economic influence, which this likely will be, than it should be approved. In this economy and especially this state, we need all of the economic growth we can get. If I were a resident of this town I would be thanking these entrepreneurial minded folks for trying to create jobs. Yes they are concerned with their bottom line, if they weren’t they wouldn’t have much of a business.
Because people don’t buy homes or live in homes their whole lives in a RESIDENTIAL neighborhood only to have 1 couple open up their fish business & add a 40’by 60′ building to boot. Why should it be approved if “the net result is a positive econonic influence”? Cuz YOU think so? I’m guessing they hire 4-5 people to schlep lobsters around in crates for $8 or $9 an hour with no benefits. Big economic influence there, huh? And a neighborhood gets ruined because of it. Want to open a lobster business? Do it in Belfast Harbor, they WANT commercial business there. This neighborhood doesn’t.
We need more jobs and a stronger economy but not if its going to make a truck drive by a house…
Had to move out of this sleepy town 30 years ago. This town and Searsport have always had problems with any growth and the young will continue to move away. School Street has potenial to be an attractive business location. Let them expand.
The neighborhood ‘residents’ have opposing interests to those who want to run their business from there. That’s why zoning is residential versus commercial. Occasionally it’s ‘combined’ use but agreed upon – beforehand.
The town needs to decide whether to make that neighborhood, or any, a ‘combined use’ area.
I lived in Stockton Springs for a short time. There are a lot of out of state owners who visit mostly in the summer and certain holidays and rent the rest of the year as investment property.
The interests of ‘the locals’, alongside those of the ‘folks from away’ are not co-extensive.
The decisive ‘town meeting’ needs to include everybody who has a financial interest all year long.
at a time when most are available to vote and be counted.
Sounds like many people from Mass have moved to Stockton Spring THEY complain about anything!
Isn’t there already a fish based business at the end of that road? This area has always supported marine based industry and that shouldn’t change. What bothers me here is the importation of Canadian lobster! Or is the Canadian tractor trailer taking Maine harvested products to market?