Edgecomb’s lawyer is maintaining that, for now at least, the town needs to keep paying tax incentives to a bank, not to the developer who claims the money is his.

A 2009 deal to pay the Bank of Maine still holds, unless the bank or a court says otherwise, attorney John Cunningham wrote to developer Roger Bintliff. 

The December 11 letter is the latest turn in a months-long issue over the payments.

The incentives were established when Bintliff’s company Edgecomb Development was going to pay for some utilities on Davis Island. 

Bintliff later agreed to have the town send those payments to the bank, in connection with his company’s loans. Then in May, he wrote to selectmen to say he owes the bank nothing now, and the payments should be going to him.

But it’s not that simple, according to Cunningham’s letter.  It claims the 2009 deal binds the town to pay the bank, and only the bank or a court order can change that. “There is nothing …which gives the Town the power to decide when the Bank’s assignment has ended…,” Cunningham wrote to Bintliff. “In the event of a court dispute, the Town would not argue for either side, because it has no position to defend. 

“Instead, the Town would offer to make the payments to the court until…the court decided which party was entitled to the payments.”

Selectmen discussed the letter and expressed their support for it at their December 18 board meeting. The letter has already been mailed, they said. 

Bintliff, of Dresden, wasn’t at the meeting.  Reached afterward, he said he hadn’t received the letter yet. When he does, he’ll have his lawyer review it, he said. He had no further comment.

Recently, Bintliff had praised selectmen’s plans to ask a court to decide who should get the payments. Selectmen on December 18 said they had since consulted further with Cunningham and they agreed the letter to Bintliff was the right next step.

“Let’s just wait and see what comes from this,” Selectmen’s Chairman Jessica Chubbuck said.

Post-holidays meeting schedule

Selectmen set their next two meeting dates for January 7 and 14, because upcoming Mondays fall on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Both meetings start at 6 p.m. at town hall.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or sjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com.