A pair of court cases filed by the former owner of a motel against the town of Bucksport and its officials for placing a dangerous building order on the structure have been resolved almost five years after the motel was condemned.
Asad Khaqan, owner of the former Spring Fountain Motel on Route 1 until he sold it last year, had appealed in superior court the dangerous building order from 2021. He separately sued the town, its code enforcement officer and council members in federal court, accusing them of violating his rights, discriminating against him and harassing him.
A Ellsworth judge ruled in favor of the town at the end of December in the dangerous building appeal because Khaqan no longer owns the property. The federal case reached a settlement this week through Maine Municipal Association, which insures Bucksport and many of its members throughout the state.
Terms of the settlement aren’t yet final, according to attorney Jonathan Brogan, who represented the town in the federal case; he declined to comment on the sum or how much, if any of it, Bucksport will pay. Legal fees in that case were covered by the town’s insurance, according to Town Manager Jacob Gran. Bucksport spent $90,072 on the state case between 2021 and 2026, Gran said.
A final settlement will resolve a long-running legal saga that has cost Bucksport tens of thousands of dollars at a time when it’s working to tighten its budget after drawing down savings that had cushioned it from the loss of its major employer and taxpayer, the Verso Paper mill, more than a decade ago.
The motel’s new owners have made progress on heating, electrical and plumbing repairs since buying it last spring. They hope to ask the town to lift the dangerous building order next month with a goal of opening under a new name in April or May, according to one of its owners, Admir Bali.
“Right now, we’re just trying to get it to its original glory,” he said.
The order came after years of safety concerns from the town about conditions at the 50-room, 66-year-old motel. It offered rooms for long term rent, a trend that’s repeated in other older motels amid the state’s affordable housing shortage.
Town officials had pushed the owners and managers to fix problems they said included inadequate electricity and plumbing, mold, a broken heating system and smoke detectors that didn’t work. Some sinks emptied into buckets that tenants dumped into bathtubs, and many used portable heaters without automatic safety shutoffs to stay warm, Chiavelli said in 2021.
After the council approved the dangerous building order, residents were ordered to leave until problems were fixed. Up to 30 families were living there at one time, councilors had said. The motel has been uninhabited since.
Khaqan told the council at the time that he knew work needed to be done and he planned to solve the situation, noting that many tenants couldn’t pay rent and pandemic-era emergency protections prevented him from evicting anyone.
All displaced residents were relocated to other housing, except for one or two who would need to enter rehab and refused, according to Chiavelli.
When Khaqan sued the town, Chiavelli and the town council, he accused officials of violating his rights and said Chiavelli spread misleading information about him and interfered with his management of the property. He also claimed the code enforcement officer made racist comments about his southern Asian ethnicity in front of his brother, who once managed the property, which Chiavelli denies.
Khaqan sought unspecified punitive monetary damages against the town.
“The false and misleading statements, the discriminatory and disparate treatment, the constant harassment, and intentional interference with contractual relations all of which continue to this day has caused the Plaintiff to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, in revenues and profits,” the federal complaint said.
The motel had also been for sale for the past few years. Last spring, it was purchased by Large View Motel Rental and Leasing, LLC, according to documents filed in the Hancock County Registry of Deeds, which name its members as Bali and Muharrem Plloci. Bali noted its central location and said he expects it to bring new business to town.
The two also run the Sanctuary Inn in Ellsworth, which has received general assistance funds to house people needing somewhere to go and heard complaints from neighbors over tenant behavior in recent years.
Bali said they are still planning how the Bucksport motel will operate, but are open to longer term stays like the Sanctuary Inn offers if there is a need for it. That location was a “learning curve” for the business partners, according to Bali, but he said they have fixed issues there as they’ve become aware of them and have good relationships with neighbors. Both sites will have security cameras and staff on site 24/7, with no tolerance for alcohol and drugs, he said.
“We want to help people and run a business at the same time, which I believe is possible,” he said.
Chiavelli said the end of Khaqan’s legal actions is a relief, though he would have liked to disprove the claims in court.
“Anybody who’s been to those buildings, any tenant who’s lived in those buildings, will tell you that the complaints from the owner were completely unjust and frivolous,” Chiavelli said Wednesday.