Wiscasset selectmen unanimously denied sewage damage claims from the Wiscasset Wine Outlet after discussing the issue during an executive session meeting Feb. 5.
On Feb. 9, Wiscasset Town Manager Arthur Faucher said Wine Outlet owner Luanne Clifford was present for the public part of the Feb. 5 meeting and left telling selectmen she would see them in court.
“I pay for sewage to be removed not to be put into my business,” Clifford said Tuesday.
Selectmen based their decision on advice from two attorneys, according to Faucher.
“I think it was a bad move as public servants not to take responsibility,” said Clifford, who also owns and operates 93 Townsend, a restaurant in Boothbay Harbor.
According to John Brogan, attorney for the town’s liability insurance provider, the Maine Municipal Association, the sewage backup into the Rt. 1 store was “an act of God” because of power outage during the Dec. 12 ice storm.
Brogan addressed selectmen at their meeting last Feb. 3 asserting the town has no liability for the damages and therefore the MMA would not be paying any insurance money for them.
A power outage throughout the town caused a shutdown of the power for a pump station located across the road from the store. When the power went back on, the sewer department went from station to station making sure all of them did not go back on line at the same, according to Brogan.
The town paid for initial cleanup of the main floor of the structure at a cost of $800 so that the owner could reopen the store for the rest of the Christmas season. However, frozen sewage remains in the basement now.
“My big concern is when it gets consistently warmer,” Clifford said.
A second basis for the board’s decision resulted from the town’s legal counsel, Dennis Jumper, who read about the situation in the newspaper and volunteered his legal advice to the board in a written statement.
Jumper addressed the issue of the possibility of a precedent set when the town made repairs to a private home several years ago when there was a similar sewage backup.
“That assertion is absolutely incorrect,” he wrote in an email to the board dated Feb. 5. “The selectmen have no right to spend town money to clean up a private property where the town has no liability for the problem and therefore is not obligated to do so.”
Jumper said further, “To do so would be to impose a private expense upon the town’s taxpayers. If for some reason the town mistakenly paid for a private cleanup in the past, it would not justify making ‘the same mistake’ today or in the future.”
The town previously hired an adjuster to look at the building and determine what the cost of damages would be after Clifford had her own estimates made of about $15,000 including the amount of lost wages and business.
Faucher said Tuesday the amount of damages the adjuster estimated currently is confidential and was not brought out in the open session following the executive session last week.
“Any document we have has to be turned in to the MMA,” he said.
Clifford said she will continue to investigate the situation, including the operation of the sewage treatment plant and condition of the pumping station, which she said may not be up to par.
“I’ve had so much support from the townspeople,” she said.
Clifford said a suit may be the only way to get restitution. “I’m not going to let that ruin my business,” she said.