A man declined to tell Alna selectmen April 4 if he's living in a recreational vehicle on his mother's property.

“I prefer not to put my foot in my mouth too much right now,” Terry Ross told the board. “I'm not acknowledging that it's a dwelling.”

A seasonal structure can't be lived in for more than 120 days a year without some conditions being met, Alna Code Enforcement Officer Stan Waltz said at the April 4 selectmen's meeting. The conditions include some form of septic system, such as a composting toilet, Waltz said.

Waltz recently wrote to the landowner, Ross' mother Billie Willard, about the plumbing issues and an issue about the tax break her Alna Road property gets for having a tree-growth plan. The RV and a tool shed can't stay there if that part of the property is going to keep getting the break, town officials said.

Land with a forester-approved tree growth plan cannot have any structures on it, Waltz said. One option would be to take just that part of the property off the tree-growth plan, so that the rest of the acreage could still get a break, selectmen said. Two acres would have to come out of the plan, officials said.

If Willard keeps those structures there without taking that part of the property off the tree-growth plan, the rest of the property would also lose the tax break, board members said.

The plan is also overdue to be renewed, selectmen said. Removal of all or part of the property from tree-growth could draw Willard, a former Alna selectman, a penalty of thousands of dollars, selectmen said.

Waltz said Willard has not contacted him about his March 6 letter to her. Selectmen agreed to have the town's assessing firm draft a new letter.

“That gives Billie more time to research things and respond,” Second Selectman Jonathan Villeneuve said.

At one point, Ross asked if he could bring more structures onto the property, to get around the 120-day rule. “Couldn't I just get two more trailers? What difference does it make, if you just play musical trailers,” he said. “If there's a loophole … I'd like to find one.”

Selectmen told Ross that the board will need to work out the issues with Willard, not with him.

Plow complaint

In a letter to selectmen, Deputy Town Clerk Judi Greenleaf described a recent experience she said she and her daughter had with a plow truck. The truck was in the middle of the road, barreling toward the car they were in, Greenleaf wrote. Her daughter, who was driving, avoided the truck, but the car dropped off the edge of the tar, fishtailed and went between a granite marker and a tree. Then her daughter was able to get the car up a driveway.

Selectmen decided to forward the letter to Mark Hanley, the town's snow removal contractor.

Hanley is scheduled to meet with the board April 18, to discuss the next contract.

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