Since Samuel Rice moved to a house on Chick Hill Road in Clifton 10 years ago, he’s lived on a paved road.
Rice’s house sits on a section of the road less than half a mile long that connects Coach Road and the trailhead for Chick Hill Mountain, one of the most popular hiking spots in Greater Bangor.
But when he turned onto his road one evening earlier this year, Chick Hill was a gravel road. It’s been that way ever since.
“I wouldn’t have come to this podunk town 10 years ago onto a paved road just to know it was going to be regressed,” Rice said about the change.
Rice is among the Chick Hill Road residents who have been left with a dirt road after the project’s budget ran out of money, stalling construction. Town voters then rejected putting more money toward the paving this year during an October special meeting.
The project has split the community between residents who didn’t want to spend more money after already approving funds and those who want the road paved despite the cost. It has also brought a debate over how much funding the town has available to the forefront, with residents and select board members disputing the amount.
Clifton residents approved $135,000 in funding for the Chick Hill Road improvements in March as part of the town’s budget. The funds come from tax increment financing, or taxes collected in specific areas of a municipality that can be spent on projects in the town, through the Pisgah Mountain wind farm.
Rice and his neighbors didn’t know the road was going to be turned to gravel without the funding to repave it, he said.
Information provided to residents during an Oct. 29 special meeting said the road had “received many upgrades” through the $135,000 approved earlier this year, but the amount didn’t cover paving the road.
Residents rejected the town using an additional $130,000 from the Pisgah Mountain fund to pave the road this year at the special meeting with a 24-27 vote.
The extra money isn’t a problem to Rice, who voted in favor of spending it. He just wants the town to pave his road and learn from its mistakes in town when road improvements aren’t done correctly, he said. A recent project on Clewley Road also faced backlash from residents because of what Rice said was an “absolute logistical nightmare.”
The town will now wait at least a year to pave the road, which is only going to cause more problems because of plowing and road use that will wear away the current base that should be paved over, Rice said.
John Williams, a Select Board member, said at the meeting that he believed the approved amount would cover the whole project and the Board did not handle the improvements correctly.
“This project should have been done in one summer. Not in two, and certainly not in three. It is this Board’s lack of planning, lack of bidding and lack of oversight of contractors that has caused it to take this long,” he said.
Williams told the Bangor Daily News he didn’t have any further comment.
Chick Hill Road was said to be in “fair” condition in Clifton’s most recent comprehensive plan in 2005.
One reason for the project taking longer and costing more than initially planned for are that the road was rockier than expected, Williams said, but Select Board Chair Dennis Harvey said the project wasn’t over budget.
“We have a contract with our vendor who has done the work appropriately. I know of no cost overrun,” Harvey said.
Clifton entered an agreement with Lakeside Lawn Care in 2017 as a road maintenance contractor. The contract was then updated in 2020 to a road and general maintenance agreement.
There is no contract specifically for the Chick Hill Road improvements because it falls under the agreement with the contractor, Harvey said.
Josh Greer, owner of Lakeside Lawn Care, said he had no comment on the improvements at Chick Hill Road.
Disagreements about the town’s funds dissolved into arguments between residents and Select Board members at the October special meeting, with both sides saying different amounts.
The town did not have the funds it was asking for in its account, Williams said, and cited an overdraft to begin the year. Harvey said there was no overdraft and the town has the amounts presented at the meeting that would cover the paving.
The town report for 2025 said there was more than $61,000 in the Pisgah Mountain account at the beginning of the year. A handout from October shows the account holding more than $133,000.
There’s more than $108,000 in the town’s reserve account from state revenue sharing that could be used for road improvements, according to the town’s handout.
With his road still unpaved and residents arguing about if the project should go forward, Rice said he was upset about the state of Clifton.
“It’s really frustrating being here. It’s hard to say I want to stay here watching how much the citizens fight amongst each other, because you can’t agree on a simple road,” Rice said.
