WINDHAM – At a July 22 joint training session for the Windham Town Council and Planning Board, tensions boiled over between members of the two bodies as they discussed a March 24 incident relating to an eminent domain issue on Sabbady Point Road.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Councilor Donna Chapman traded barbs with brothers Ryan and Scott McDonald, who both serve on the Planning Board. According to the McDonalds, Chapman belittled and intimidated them at the March 24 meeting, when she interrupted the proceedings after Scott MacDonald mentioned the phrase “eminent domain” in regard to an applicant’s request to move a private road.

Chapman said she was concerned that the town could be sued, since the Planning Board has no legal authority to initiate eminent domain proceedings, and government entities also can only take private property through eminent domain for “public use.” In response to the incident, Chapman said she asked Town Manager Tony Plante to schedule the joint training session, which was entitled, “Planning Board: Roles and Responsibilities.”

At the March 24 meeting, the Planning Board held a public hearing and discussion regarding Ron Marcotte’s request to relocate a segment of Sabbady Point Road in North Windham, a private road that intersects Tandberg Trail and runs through two of his properties, away from Little Sebago Lake. The road is primarily managed by the Sabbady Point Road Association.

Marcotte’s request would have encroached on a nearby right-of-way and reduced the road frontage by 101 feet on property owned by Mike Lewis, an abutter who did not attend the meeting. The board ultimately tabled the proposal and sent it to the Zoning Board of Appeals, according to Planner Amanda Lessard.

According to minutes of the meeting, an unidentified member or members of the board commented, “It was unfortunate Mr. Lewis had not attended the meeting. Did he have any representation? If the town did that, it seemed like eminent domain.”

After hearing the remark about eminent domain, Chapman said she expressed concern from her chair in the audience that Lewis could “lawyer up” in response to the remark about eminent domain.

“It was like, ‘We can’t be saying that stuff you guys,’” Chapman said. “We need some training here.”

“It was just me,” Chapman added. “It was my knee jerk reaction. I just blurted it out.”

At the July 22 training, town attorney Ken Cole said that the board did not have the authority to use eminent domain. During the training, Scott McDonald said that he had never suggested that the Planning Board use eminent domain on Marcotte’s behalf.

“I never said, let’s do it with eminent domain,” Scott McDonald said. “What I said if I remember correctly was, ‘If the town did this, it would be eminent domain.’ I was wondering how, because I’m not a lawyer, I work for free, and I go out of my way to do it. I have even a little plaque that said that everybody appreciates me to do it.”

Scott MacDonald said that he did not appreciate Chapman’s interjection.

“I wasn’t happy,” he said. “It made me uncomfortable. It made everybody else uncomfortable. We’re not up here to be belittled. We have to put up with it from people, yes, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t right, and I hope it doesn’t happen again.”

Ryan McDonald, the chairman of the Planning Board, said that Chapman had not respected the board.

“I believe you sat in that row and addressed one of the members of the Planning Board and told them not to talk about that because they were going to get sued,” he said. “I just ask, I ask this of everybody who comes in front of the Planning Board, that they come up and they speak and they state their name here for the record, and I expect no less from a councilor. You know it was, it seemed like kind of intimidating to that particular member, and I didn’t appreciate it.”

Chapman said that her primary concern was that the Planning Board had not received adequate training.

“It wasn’t to undermine you,” she said. “It wasn’t to do anymore than that. From my point, it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, those are things they don’t know.’ We have to get them the training. And you could probably ask Tony [Plante] for that email. And then it just ballooned into something that it wasn’t after the fact.”

Jim Hanscom, another member of the Planning Board who attended both meetings, said that the Planning Board has no business discussing eminent domain. Still, he said, Chapman should have shown more deference to the board out of respect.

“She was wrong in a sense,” Hanscom said. “She got up in a meeting before the meeting was over, and she started talking openly in a meeting. You’re not supposed to do that.”

“She can’t blurt out something,” he added. “She can’t do that. Just like we can’t do it in her council meeting.”