Maine

Susan M. Cover

AUGUSTA -- Gov. John Baldacci is concerned that state regulations involving all-terrain vehicles may lead landowners to restrict access to their properties, so he's asked a work group to take a second look at the issue.

Baldacci signed an executive order Tuesday to create a 16-member group to examine the issue of all-terrain vehicle riders on private property.

Betty Adams

WINTHROP -- Thieves made off with the long arms of a gate erected to block four-wheel and all-terrain vehicles from trails along the back side of Mount Pisgah.

The Kennebec Land Trust is offering a $500 reward for information leading to the conviction of those who stole it.

Nick Sambides Jr.

MILLINOCKET, Maine — Volunteers who have spent years creating the Katahdin region’s first ATV trail network say illegal dumping and trespassing ATVers might destroy their efforts just as their goal comes within reach.

With Phase I of a proposed trail almost finished and a $35,000 grant to start Phase II just received, riders have trespassed on the trail, which is not open to ATVers yet, despite posted warnings, said Brian Wiley, a Millinocket Area Trails Committee member and East Millinocket resident. He also said a lot of dumping has occurred nearby.

Sharon Kiley Mack

MACHIAS, Maine — With about two weeks still remaining in this month, Machias police have already issued 28 charges against 19 people, and three more charges are pending, Chief Grady Dwelley said Tuesday.

He credits alert community members with many of the arrests, as well as an effort by his officers to monitor known offenders.

Stop. That’s the message landowners and recreational groups wanted the Legislature to send to ATV riders in L.D. 1536. But the bill took a tortuous trail and crashed short of the finish line.

Rep. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, successfully sponsored legislation last year that prohibited Maine game wardens from stopping ATV riders without “reasonable and articulable suspicion” that a violation of law has occurred. The new law took effect last September.

Nick Sambides Jr.

LINCOLN, Maine — The trees and quiet calm of Buckley Avenue are as much a part of Thomas White’s neighborhood now as they were when he bought a home there 30 years ago.

That’s why White doesn’t want the Penobscot Off-Road Riders ATV Club forging a trail on his road.

A bill to tighten enforcement of all-terrain vehicles on private land in Maine is dead.

The House and Senate failed to agree on matching versions of the bill, so it died Monday.

The Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands has issued a new Maine All-Terrain Vehicle Trail Map for the 2010 riding season.

But officials say the trails will remain closed until the land dries out.

A measure that would allow wardens and other law enforcement officers to stop ATV's operating on privately-owned property without suspicion of a violation prompted heated debate yesteday in the Maine house. 


"Read the state constitution, read the federal constitution -- you'll never find a right to trespass, a right to be on sombeody's property without permission," said Rep. Thom Watson, a Bath Democrat. "So we're not stepping back saying we're taking away any rights, because to begin this process, as an ATV operator, you don't have any right to be where you are unless you have landowner permission."