Select board members removed Soapstone Road from the town’s plow list earlier this summer after they determined that it was a Class IV road that has been treated as a Class III and regularly maintained by the town.
Residents of the horseshoe-shaped road off of Route 2 received a letter in the mail a month ago indicating the town’s intention to remove the road from the town’s plow list.
Soapstone Road resident Patricia Kennedy said that she was told that she would be notified before the town reached a decision concerning road maintenance and was only notified after the decision was made.
“My attitude has always been no matter what you don’t complain and the town plows the road; we’re far off from the town, we don’t get too many services, but the road is plowed and we get a place to vote. Taking it away is going to cause hardship on a working class road,” she said.
“It’s a small road that’s older and it’s been on the books forever; suddenly we’re being taken off and it’s going to create real havoc in that neighborhood. We can’t afford the plowing and grading and the liability insurance; I really feel this is unfair,” Kennedy continued.
Soapstone Road resident Don Gamble said that hiring a private contractor to maintain the road is going to cost $400 to $700 per snowstorm for the 300-yard road.
“Is it necessary? Does it make that big of a difference? The impact on the town is minimal and the impact on us is huge; it’s been plowed by the town for 50 years,” he said.
Soapstone resident Sebastian von Trapp asked town officials to explain the process and the legality of removing a previously town maintained road from the plow list.
Select board chair John Hoogenboom said the town recently found out that the road is Class IV not Class III and “We don’t even plow Class IV roads, it was getting the treatment as if it was Class III,” he said.
Select board member Stephanie Venema said the road is technically classified as a private road.
“Somewhere along the line we realized it wasn’t classified as a town road; somewhere it was assumed that it was so it got curb cuts,” Venema said.
Soapstone Road resident Theresa Cook said that per her mortgage agreement with the USDA, if her house isn’t located on a town maintained road, she will lose her mortgage.
“If it’s not a town maintained road they’ll pull your mortgage and give you two weeks to get out,” she said.
Soapstone resident Trevor Damon told town officials that the road was marked private approximately 12 years ago after the town completed 911 address requirements.
“The road has always been plowed by the town; it’s a huge deal for us,” he said.
Johnnie-Lee Damon told select board members that following a house fire that forced she and her husband to rebuild, the bank that issued the mortgage required that they get a signed letter from the Moretown road commissioner that stated that the road is maintained by the town.
Damon said that former road commissioner Craig Elwell signed the letter both times.
Hoogenboom said that Class IV roads get once a year maintenance and no plowing.
Von Trapp asked town officials to explain “how a service can go away and there is no change in the amount of taxes we pay to the town?”
Select board member Clark Amadon agreed that there were “seeming inequities” in the situation.
Damon said, “Our road got plowed and sanded more than it ever has been before; I voted for the new town highway truck at town meeting, why sub it out?”
Venema told Soapstone Road residents that “we do keep track of certain road maintenance, but we don’t keep track of how much time they spend maintaining every road.”
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