A Penobscot County road is being paved a year after the decision to do so divided voters.
Chick Hill Road in Clifton was regraded Wednesday and will be repaved Thursday and Friday, according to a notice from the town.
The road is used by residents and hikers to gain access to the nearby 1,100-foot peak the road is named after. Chick Hill Road was the subject of multiple agenda items last fall for the Clifton Select Board after it was torn up as part of an improvement project but not immediately repaved.
Clifton residents have experienced dysfunction and division in recent years due to budget issues and an election decided by a single vote. The paving of Chick Hill Road shows the town has built up funds for projects and the town select board worked together to accept a bid.
Select board members John Williams, Trish Eldridge, Lee Bryant and Steve Armenia approved a $120,404 bid on Aug. 12 from Paving Professionals, a Winterport-based contractor, for the paving project. Select Board member and Road Commissioner Greg Newell voted against the bid, saying another may have been cheaper.
Although residents of the road asked for the project to be completed sooner, Williams said waiting a year allowed the town to save the funds needed for the construction.
“I’m happy that this project is going to be completed this week and thank those residents that have waited patiently,” Williams said. Waiting a year “ensured that the town had enough funds in our accounts to complete the work without needing to take out debt,” he added.
Before Paving Professionals’ bid was accepted, Clifton had not gone through a competitive bidding process on road improvements “for many years,” Williams said. Previous work on the road was done by Lakeside Lawn Care, which had a $135,000 budget for the project in 2025 but ran out of money before it repaved the road.
Clifton had a longstanding contract with Lakeside Lawn Care as a road maintenance contractor that began in 2017, meaning road projects were awarded to the Clifton-based company instead of going out to bid. The contract was updated in 2020.
The paving comes almost a year after voters denied the town’s proposal to spend an additional $130,000 to complete the road in a special town meeting. The funds would have been allocated from the town’s tax increment finance account, or taxes collected in specific areas of a municipality that can be spent on projects in the town, through the Pisgah Mountain wind farm.
The vote split 24-27 after residents said they disagreed with giving the town more money for a project they already paid for, while others said they wanted it to be finished instead of dragging into a second year.
After fielding multiple complaints about potholes from residents on town roads, Newell is creating a 10-year capital improvement plan for paving and road maintenance. At a select board meeting on Sept. 16, he said the plan will allow Clifton to get to multiple projects a year and allow deferred maintenance to be completed.
Williams said the bid process felt like a “fresh start” that saved money for taxpayers.
“It feels like we have added some discipline to the process, which I’m sure we will carry forward as a board,” he said.