An effort to save Ellsworth’s former Ticonic 4 firehouse might have been dealt a death blow with a recent city board’s vote.
The Ellsworth Board of Appeals voted 6-0 on Feb. 7 to deny an appeal filed by resident Judy Blood that would have stopped the razing of the building on Route 1A, board Chairman Jeffrey Toothaker said.
Blood contended that the city sold the property to Webber Group in 2005 for $5,000 with the understanding that Webber would seek city permission for any change in use for the firehouse building, which would include tearing it down. She said the building, which dates back to the late 1800s, has historical value and should be preserved.
City officials, however, said there is nothing in the deed to the property that prevents Webber from tearing the building down if it wants to do so, despite whatever preservation guarantees the city might have hoped for 13 years ago.
Toothaker said the board’s hands were effectively tied by its jurisdiction, which only relates to city planning decisions, not deeds.
“We were the wrong board to appeal to is the bottom line,” Toothaker said Tuesday. “The City Council should have taken care of this problem. They made it. They should take care of it.”
The council could have better protected residents’ interests by adding restrictions to the deed that required Webber to seek city permission for a change in building use or to preserve the building, as Blood seeks, Toothaker said.
Blood could appeal the board’s vote in civil court but has said that she won’t. Efforts to contact her on Tuesday were not immediately successful.
As of Tuesday, Webber had not yet begun demolition, Toothaker said.
“Webber has played very nice through the whole thing,” he said. “They haven’t made a move to wreck the place and have waited for a decision of the boards to have been in play.”