FREEDOM, Maine — A two-year dispute over whether Beaver Ridge Road is private or open to recreational vehicles may be nearing resolution. The fight has created division among Freedom residents and led to angry exchanges in public meetings, road and property damage, the recall of a Select Board member and concerns about the town’s mounting legal fees.
Since sitting for mediation in mid-November, the landowners and the Freedom Select Board have been hammering out an agreement that establishes private ownership on one side of the 1.5-mile stretch in question and certain permitted public uses — excluding ATVs and snowmobiles — on the other side. If the Select Board and the Hadyniak family authorize their attorneys to sign the decree following a public hearing Feb. 28, it will settle the family’s lawsuit against the town and the town’s counter claim.
Kennebunk attorney and mediator Durwood Parkinson said the consent decree resulted from the “hard work and spirit of cooperation exhibited by the parties at mediation” and, in his view, was a win-win for both sides. Once the agreement is signed by the parties, it will go to Waldo County Superior Court Justice Patrick Larson for his signature, and then will be recorded in the county land records.
Parkinson acknowledged extensive historical research done by both sides that highlighted “conflicting and ambiguous language” about the disputed portion of the road. He also dismissed the Freedom Select Board’s vote on Feb. 24, 2025, to declare the disputed stretch a public way, including for vehicular traffic. Only the Superior Court has authority in such matters, Parkinson said, and the Select Board vote therefore was “void.”
According to the consent decree, although the town took a public easement in the road, that did not give the town ownership, and the abutting property owners “have always privately owned — and continue to privately own” to the centerline of Beaver Ridge Road. The agreement also states that the town “does not dispute” that the Hadyniaks “acted reasonably and in good faith … when they posted the disputed portion of the road as private and forbade entry by others.”
In an email to the Midcoast Villager, attorney Tyler Hadyniak, who has represented his family in the dispute, called the consent decree “a fair result which also benefits all of Freedom.” He noted in particular that the town “also does not dispute that my family acted reasonably over the past 28 years in treating the road as private property, as was represented to us throughout the 1990s” when his grandparents purchased the abutting land.
At the same time, the public is granted “the right to recreate on the road in ways comparable to the Hills to Sea Trail or other public areas in Freedom, while excluding ways that could harm the road, like by ATV or snowmobile use,” Hadyniak said. “The legal status of the disputed portion of Beaver Ridge Road has been a topic of discussion — of varying degrees of intensity — for at least the past 35 years. Hopefully that discussion will finally be put to rest with this Consent Decree.”
Freedom Select Board Chair Laura Greeley told the Villager, “My comment from the beginning has always been, whatever is legal and whatever is right. I always believe that, ultimately, truth wins, and that the power is and should be with the people.”
Heather Donahue, a former Select Board member and star of the 1999 film “The Blair Witch Project,” has not responded to a Villager request for comment. While on the Select Board, she researched the history of Beaver Ridge Road in an effort to establish that it was a public way and was recalled because some of her tactics angered townspeople. Donahue is now campaigning to reclaim her Select Board seat in the town election in March. A candidates night for Donahue and two opponents is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 6, 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Town Office election annex.
The Freedom Select Board will hold a public hearing at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, at Mount View High School to discuss the consent decree with townspeople. Following that session, the Select Board will vote on whether to authorize the town attorney to sign it.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.