Having followed the long-running conflict between Jeff Spinney and the town of Alna over Spinney’s boat ramp, it was interesting to see the conflict come to some sort of resolution last week when the parties agreed to a settlement following a public hearing on the issue.
Any good feelings are qualified, however, by the fact the resolution obviously leaves all parties unsatisfied and some abutters and private opponents to Spinney’s boat ramp extremely unhappy. As we go to press this week, there are rumblings of a private lawsuit to come.
The fact there is a level of discontent all around probably speaks to the wisdom of the deal.
The tax dollars the town spent on this effort are unrecouped. While Spinney ends up with his boat ramp, he too is out a significant amount of money and is not indemnified from prosecution for any future violation of town ordinances.
At the meeting last week, tension was palpable. From day one, this was a divisive issue, not only because of the strong personalities involved, but also because it laid bare the long-simmering conflict between relatively recent transplants, who may have brought with them an idealized version of the way should be, and lifelong residents who are intimately familiar with the way life here has traditionally been lived.
In the end, we commend select board members Steven Graham and Coreysha Stone for making a hard call, one that was bound to create discontent in its wake. In some respects, going along with the status quo might have been the easier road to take: let the legal battle run its course and pay the bills as they come in. However, it was likely this battle and the attendant legal fees would continue for several more years at minimum.
In our experience, the end, we suspect, was always going to look very much like this. Spinney keeps his boat ramp, the town gets some assurance of compliance. It is very much a compromise.
In a democracy, that actually is the way life should be.
