Maine Department of Transportation and Wiscasset have been trading legal barbs as an April 12 court date nears on a requested preliminary injunction to prevent MDOT from demolishing the Haggett building.

On March 23, MDOT filed a court document saying it planned to put the Wiscasset work out to bid the following week. On MDOT’s website, the project to be bidded on in Wiscasset, described as “Highway Reconstruction and Improvements/located on U.S. Route 1 beginning at Fort Hill and Extending to Creamery Wharf, including parking along Railroad Avenue” was posted March 28 and is  scheduled to go out to bid April 18, six days after the hearing.

The work listed does not include the Haggett building, at 36 Water Street, where MDOT has planned to build a second parking lot to replace Main Street parking..

MDOT’s court document disputes Wiscasset’s claims, contends the historic preservation ordinance is not a zoning ordinance, and contends Wiscasset has not shown how it will suffer irreparable harm if the project moves forward. Also, MDOT reminds the court, highway projects are the responsibility of MDOT, are not town issues, and that courts are advised to show restraint when dealing with government agencies. “For these reasons, there is no likelihood – much less a substantial probability – that the town will prevail on the merits, and should be denied on that basis alone.”

The town responded to a Feb. 14  counterclaim by MDOT, filed just after a town meeting in which selectmen did not agree to a settlement with MDOT.

In a court document filed April 2, town lawyer John Shumadine said because MDOT has not yet gone through the process of obtaining the Historic Preservation Commission’s certificates of appropriateness, MDOT’s motion is time-limited. MDOT would have to attempt to obtain the certificates, then wait the 30-day period to appeal. Because they have done neither, MDOT does not have standing to ask the court to intervene, Shumadine argues.

The document also said MDOT was attempting to “chill the town’s first amendment right to petition the government for redress” by frightening the town with monetary claims. The town also denies MDOT had an injury, as MDOT alleged in a Feb. 14 counterclaim, because it had confused actual damages with the harm that might arise from an “allegedly procedurally flawed vote by the Select Board.”