Paris selectmen rescind ATV access to 2 roads

Written by Sun-Journal

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Tony Reaves

Selectmen voted Monday to rescind ATV access on Parsons and East Oxford roads.

Selectmen Jean Smart, Lloyd Herrick and Raymond Glover voted to rescind access to the road, which the board had granted in June 2010. Selectmen Kenneth West and Ted Kurtz voted to allow ATV riders to continue to use the roads.

Before the vote, Town Manager Phil Tarr said both sides of the issue had cooperated over several committee meetings and had made some compromises.

Paula Hakala, a resident of Parsons Road, said the riders were 54 feet from her house and passed by all day. She called them “a constant source of invasion.”

“I can't explain enough what this has done to our quality of life,” Hakala said.

Mark Stearns of the X-Tra Mile ATV Club said members of his club obeyed laws and were considerate to residents. “If there's people up there raising hell, we want them gone, too,” he said.

Kurtz said Maine law allows ATVs to use public roads, as long as they obey speed limits and keep to the far right side of the road.

He said he believed it would infringe on the rights of the ATV club to deny them access to a public way.

“I guess democracy has not prevailed,” Stearns said after the vote.

Source: http://www.sunjournal.com/oxford-hills/story/969089

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Community Voices

“During the past decade, I have personally had six out of seven elk hunts ruined by the careless intrusions of ATV operators. This epidemic has forced me to abandon one prime hunting area after another, only to encounter the same situation elsewhere. The shameful part of this picture is that the overwhelming majority of these ATV’ers are young and healthy, not decrepit or physically challenged. Maybe these riders would be more respectful of other people's outdoor experience if they knew we could ID them."

- Bill Sustrich, Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers