FAIRFIELD — A judge in Skowhegan District Court has given Fairfield antiques dealer Robert Dale another 60 days to bring his property into compliance with the town’s land use and life safety ordinances before imposing a possible jail sentence for contempt of court.
That order comes after the town asked the court to impose a 24-hour jail sentence on Dale because, officials say, he has not done enough to clean up his property on U.S. Route 201.
In a three-page order filed Friday, Judge Andrew Benson said that although Dale has not come into full compliance, he has made significant progress.
“The defendant in this matter has engaged in an almost Herculean task,” Benson said, adding that Dale had spent 10-hour days and paid thousands of dollars to bring his property into compliance.
“He has not made all the progress required by the contempt order, or all the progress that the plaintiff would like to see, but he has made extraordinary progress in what the court would consider an undertaking of Sisyphean proportions,” Benson wrote.
The town has been wrangling with Dale for more than two years to clean up his Maine 201 Antiques store on U.S. Route 201. Last September, Dale was given a November deadline to bring his property into compliance or face up to seven days in jail. After missing that deadline, a January show cause hearing was scheduled for him to explain why the cleanup hadn’t been completed. At the same hearing, the town was awarded almost $29,000 in fines and court fees.
But after showing progress cleaning up the property, at a rescheduled hearing in March, Dale was given until June to finish the project.
“Despite the town’s repeated claims that Robert was never doing enough, it was refreshing to see Judge Benson’s unequivocal ruling that Robert has been breaking his back trying to come into compliance,” said Dale’s attorney, Walter McKee, in a written statement Friday.
“Only Atlas himself could have done more. We’ll take Herculean,” he added.
Until early this year, Dale’s property was littered with items including farming tools, wooden furniture, vehicles and miscellaneous glass, wood and metal objects. In the last six months, most of the objects on Dale’s property have been removed to trailers parked on the property.
As of March, fire safety code violations in his antiques store also were remedied. In March, Dale also paid $2,000 toward what he owes the town and has made three $250 payments since.
But according to Fairfield officials, Dale still has not brought his property up to the required standard.
At a Monday show-cause hearing in Skowhegan, town attorney Bill Lee asked the court to impose a 24-hour jail sentence on Dale because of his failure to come into full compliance with the town.
In his order, however, Benson said that he couldn’t find that Dale had failed to comply with the contempt order and “he has complied to the best of his ability so far.”
“As much as he has done, however, the defendant needs to redouble his efforts and finish the job,” Benson said. The show-cause hearing will be continued for another 60 days, at which time Dale is expected to come into full compliance.
In an interview Friday, Fairfield Town Manager Josh Reny said he thought it was an “open question” whether Dale would finish the job in the next two months.
“A lot of time has passed. The town has been very accommodating,” Reny said. “Up until now, we have not seen full compliance.”
The best-case scenario is that Dale will clean up his property by the August deadline and the town can move on, Reny added.
“We certainly hope the property will come into full compliance. That’s all we care about,” Reny said. “This is never where we wanted to be.”
Peter McGuire — 861-9239
Twitter: PeteL_McGuire
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