Rome voters are being called to a special town meeting Monday night to see if they will accept up to $15,000 from the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance toward the mounting legal bills in the town’s fight to keep a cellphone tower off The Mountain.

The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Rome Community Center.

Richard LaBelle, Rome’s second selectman, said a minimum of 54 voters must be present to constitute a quorum. The number is relatively high, he said, “because we had an exceptional turnout” in the last election involving the race for governor.

On July 7, selectmen held a public meeting where residents said they continued to support spending public money to defend the town in civil lawsuits brought by two telecommunications companies, Global Tower Assets LLC, of Boca Raton, Florida, and Northeast Wireless Networks LLC, of Winchester, Massachusetts. The firms had sued the town and the Rome Planning Board in federal court about the denial of their application for permission to erect the tower even as they pursued an appeal in the state business court.

The two firms claimed 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.

At the annual Town Meeting in March, Rome residents voted to spend $50,000 on legal fees. By early July, more than $43,000 of that was spent and selectmen then called a meeting to gauge public sentiment. Altogether, the town has spent about $90,000 over three years.

The Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance came forward with an offer, so selectmen put it on the warrant. They also could consider other donations if the article is amended at the special town meeting. “We were under the impression that there would be private sources of funding available to the town if the town voted to accept it,” LaBelle said. Some of those additional donations were brought to the selectmen’s meeting Monday night.

The conservation group, according to information on its website, www.belgradelakes.org, “is dedicated to conserving the lands, water quality, and natural heritage of the Belgrade Lakes Watershed.”

Charlie Baeder, its executive director, said a number of the group’s members have raised concerns and support the town in defending its ordinance. The group’s membership totals some 1,200 property owners in the watershed with about 100 identified as being in Rome as well as others from Rome who use post office boxes in Belgrade as their address.

“It’s all about the views, especially views from a couple different locations, which show that the cell tower would be in the view and at a closeness where it begins to matter,” Baeder said. He explained that the group had some computer simulations done to show what a 190-foot tower would look like.

“From French Mountain, the first hiking trail we ever did, it’s about a mile away,” Baeder said. He also noted that the proposed tower would be particularly visible from certain locations on the north end of Long Pond.

He said the group has focused on two questions: “Does it have to be in this location? And could it be smaller?”

The conservation group got its own legal counsel and also has been willing to help fund the defense. However, he also said the group did not give a figure of what it could raise among its members, but selectmen and others at the July 7 meeting indicated that about $5,000 to $15,000 might see it through.

A $1,000 check from the group was presented to selectmen Monday, as was a $1,000 check from Andrew and Chris Cook. Andrew Cook is Rome’s representative on the board of Regional School Unit 18, Messalonskee and China schools, and Chris Cook is a member of the conservation group’s board of directors.

An additional $1,700 in donations was made in $100 increments. LaBelle said he was told people went to their neighbors and collected money from others who live in the area.

He said those donations were not accepted at the time because both the town’s attorney and the legal department of Maine Municipal Association advised against it.

However, he said donors permitted the town to retain the donations until the special town meeting, anticipating that someone would propose an amendment to allow acceptance.

The town of Rome also contributes money to the conservation group, spending $3,600 for Rome’s share of the Conservation Corps summer work program this year and $2,000 toward a boat inspection program designed to combat the spread of invasive milfoil plants.

“Those funds they asked for were earmarked for the direct use of those programs,” LaBelle said earlier in the week.

LaBelle was speaking on his cellphone from the Town Office. However, he had to call back on a land line because the connection was so poor.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams

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