The two-year contract with the Maine Department of Conservation and the Town of Westport Island for the Ferry Landing project grant has expired. However, according to George Powell from the Bureau and Parks division, the funds are still available, and a new contract will be written.

Westport Island's agreement with the Department of Conservation gave the town about $280,000 to develop a boat launching facility at the end of Ferry Road, with the condition that the facility will always be public.

The home and land formerly owned by the late Adrian and Mary Wright, at the end of the Ferry Road, was purchased by the town in 2004 to build a pier and a seasonal ramp and float for recreational and commercial use. Since that time the town has run into one obstacle after another in proceeding forward with the project. The most recent hurdle is a complaint filed in Superior Court to vacate the decision of the town's Board of Appeals. E. Davies Allan, Paul Nergaard and Michael Stern filed the motion last summer because the Board of Appeals denied their right to appeal the decision of the planning board for the project to move forward.

The Board of Appeals' decision to deny their appeal was based on the fact that none of the three men own property abutting the Ferry Landing project, and they showed no potential injury different from that suffered by the general public. The three residents had wanted to present what they considered to be important safety and health issues.

Nergaard said recently, "It is my experience that it is usually easier to extend contracts before they expire, rather than try to renew by starting from scratch afterward. I wonder how many other critical requirements that selectmen have "disremembered" which might bite them and the town in the foot in the future. Don't I recall something about the town missing a date and losing state funding for a salt shed in the past?" He asked.

The project has received heavy opposition from a small group of people, including a citizen's petition to cease work on the project, which was defeated on a referendum vote last June.

The citizens opposed to the project have sited the safety issue at the intersections of Route 14, and the Ferry Road, the cost, the possibility that locals would lose access to the river, and criticism of the contract with the Lands for Maine Future which provided $183,000 to buy the land.

Of the original $280,000, Powell said the town used about $30,000 for additional research into engineering and permitting issues.

Saying they favor the boat launch facility and that they would like to see the project go forward, Nergaard, Stern and Allan asked the selectmen to negotiate an agreement with them by allowing one member of the selectmen's board and one of them to try to iron out their differences.

The selectmen have said they would discuss their concerns at any selectmen's meeting, but declined to appoint one person to negotiate.

"We will not negotiate the town business in a private meeting," Selectman George Richardson said.