Since the annual Town Meeting in March, Rome has spent almost $50,000 for legal fees related to the denial of a permit to build a cell tower on The Mountain, which overlooks Great Pond.

In comparison, the neighboring town of Mount Vernon has paid just over $30,000 for legal fees in reaching a court settlement last month with the same firms over the building of a cell tower off Blake Hill Road.

Now Rome’s selectmen want to know how they should continue. They’ve set a public meeting for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Rome Community Center.

“We are looking to get ideas from everybody, whether they’re residents or nonresidents, taxpayers or nontaxpayers,” said Richard LaBelle, second selectman. “We’re looking for a creative approach, comments and input on how they want the town to move forward in a strategic position.”

The selectmen also are seeking recommendations on how much money the public would like to take from surplus funds in order to continue the fight, he said.

Any amount added to the fund would have to be approved by voters at a special town meeting, according to LaBelle.

Two telecommunications companies, Global Tower Assets LLC, of Boca Raton, Florida, and Northeast Wireless Networks LLC, of Winchester, Massachusetts, had sued the town of Rome and the Rome Planning Board in federal court over the denial of their application to erect the tower.

The two firms claimed that they were victims of discrimination and should have been allowed to provide personal wireless services, that the application process was unreasonably long — more than a year — and that any written decision lacked substantial evidence in the written record. The companies hoped to spend an estimated $450,000 on a 190-foot tower on The Mountain which overlooks Great Pond.

A federal judge rejected that claim last August. U.S. District Court Judge George Z. Singal ruled that the town had not reached a final decision prior to the filing of the federal challenge and that the Rome Planning Board’s review and denial of the tower application did not violate the due process rights of Global Tower and Northeast.

Global and Northeast appealed that ruling to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, saying the Planning Board’s denial was indeed a final action.

The town, in its response to that claim, wants Singal’s decision upheld and says the two companies should have gone to the Rome Board of Appeals rather than directly to federal court.

In the meantime, Global Tower Assets and Northeast Wireless Networks have challenged the town of Rome in the state’s Business Court, which is handled in Cumberland County. There the legal wrangling is over both the actions and the composition of the Board of Appeals.

That leaves the town in complex legal proceedings in both the state business court and federal court in Boston.

Rome town records show that $50,000 went into the legal account fund on March 4. Since then, $16,204.63 was paid to attorney Frank Underkuffler for handling the state court action and $25,308.23 was paid to Theodore Small’s law firm of Isaacson & Raymond in the appeal in federal court.

Some $198.44 went to Selectman Malcolm Charles for travel expenses and $87.68 was paid out for a posting in MaineToday Media, which publishes the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel.

That leaves a balance of $8,201.02.

Neighboring Mount Vernon has spent a total of $30,122.10 on legal fees so far in defending a federal lawsuit brought by Global Tower Assets LLC, according to Paul Crockett, chairman of the Mount Vernon Select Board. That 2013 action has resulted in a consent decree reached at the mediation level and approved June 16 by Singal. Singal also indicated that the parties each had to pay their own legal costs.

“We are glad to have this behind us now and happy that, in the end, the town was able to persevere with the applicant adhering to all the standards in our new ordinance,” Crockett said via email. He said the applicants received a permit to erect a 190-foot tower off Blake Hill Road and that he anticipated groundbreaking to occur shortly.

He noted that the tower company received a variance with regard to the setback requirement and also proved they needed a height variance from the 100-foot limit in the new ordinance.

“While reluctant to call this a win-win given the legal costs all around, in the end the citizens of Mount Vernon will enjoy improved mobile voice and data coverage, and the first personal wireless facility (cell tower) in town will be built in accordance to the standards that our citizens voted in to our ordinance.”

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams