A committee in Cape Elizabeth is working to create a mediation program that would help residents settle minor neighbor-to-neighbor disputes without town involvement.

A seven-member mediation workgroup, which has met three times since February, was scheduled to draft its final recommendations on Tuesday, after the Current’s deadline, for the council to consider at a future meeting.

Councilor Caitlin Jordan, at a goal-setting meeting in November, suggested that the town look into offering a mediation program that would give residents who are involved in neighborhood disputes an alternative process for resolving issues.

Jordan said the town has made several “unnecessary” ordinance revisions through the years that started as disputes between neighbors, including recent amendments to the town’s miscellaneous offenses ordinance in the wake of a noisy rooster in the rural Farm Hill Road neighborhood. Under the new rules, adopted in November, roosters are now prohibited on residential lots smaller than 40,000 square feet.

But some councilors, including Jordan, a farmer, opposed an outright ban on the birds, and said the council should have considered other options. Code Enforcement Officer Ben McDougal said it’s “hard to say” whether a mediation program would have helped in that situation.

“The neighbor who complained and pushed for the ordinance said (the neighbors) talked extensively about the rooster,” McDougal said.

“We attempted to mediate that but (the owners) didn’t want to get rid of their pet,” added Cape Elizabeth police Chief Neil Williams. “The rooster (issue) has really corrected itself with the ordinance. You can’t have a rooster in a small area; it just doesn’t work.”

According to the proposal, the program would be administered by the town, which would use mediators from the Portland-based crisis service provider, Opportunity Alliance, to resolve disputes before they reach the Town Council, police or court system.

Karen Groat, director of mediation services for Opportunity Alliance, said Cape Elizabeth would partner with the organization’s existing program and take advantage of its roster of trained mediators.

“We schedule mediation six days a week,” Groat said. “It’s important that people are feeling a sense of safety and well-being in their homes and community. People don’t always want to go to the level of including police or taking someone to court, so this is an opportunity to intervene before those things happen.”

Williams supports a mediation program “as long as both parties are willing,” he said.

In some cases, Williams said, a resident will approach the police department to avoid having to go to mediation. To name a few, neighborhood disputes he’s dealt with through the years have involved property line disputes, and noise issues, including crowing roosters and barking dogs.

“Nine times out of 10, we don’t have a problem,” said Williams.

The panel, which includes Jordan, Councilor Molly MacAuslan, McDougal and four residents, including a retired judge and mediators, had several decisions to make, such as whether the program would be mandatory, how volunteer mediators would be chosen, and how it would be determined to send parties to mediation.

But following a presentation by representatives of Opportunity Alliance in Portland and Volunteers of America Northern New England in Brunswick, the committee decided that implementing a town-run mediation program may not be necessary.

Jordan said the initial idea was to set up a program that would deploy Cape Elizabeth mediators to “handle some of the issues that come before the Town Council and code enforcement officer … on a neighbor-to-neighbor basis rather than make it a town-wide (issue).”

Instead, the committee is proposing that the town work with the local organizations to offer residents free or low-cost mediation services that are readily available. Jordan said the hope is to implement the program this summer.

“We are going to recommend the town take a more proactive approach to encouraging people to go to these programs and seek their use, so people aren’t living with frustrations,” Jordan said.

“We thought the best way to move forward – taking baby steps – is to simply act as a referral service (for) a trial period and see what happens,” added McDougal. “All the committee is going to ask of the council is that they support this effort (and) to do a minimal amount of advertising.”

No one department in Cape Elizabeth would be responsible for educating the community about the mediation services, said McDougal, but each department would have flyers and business cards from Opportunity Alliance and Volunteers of America on hand for distribution. In addition, the town’s website could include more information about the program and provide a place for residents to make mediation requests.

According to McDougal, in some cases, such as property line disputes, “I oftentimes tell people it’s not a town issue. Nobody wants our zoning ordinance to become thicker and thicker and more complicated. So instead of homeowners coming to the town and saying, ‘We want more zoning,’ maybe neighborhoods would engage in mediation and solve the dispute without having a new town ordinance written,” McDougal said.

Under the program, trained volunteer mediators would work directly with residents to try to resolve potentially hostile conflicts.

“We are able to provide some customer service by giving (residents) an avenue to mediate (disputes) outside of the town,” McDougal said, adding there are instances, however, where the town would become involved. Though not always the case, the new mediation program could also “potentially keep the town out of court,” he said.

McDougal added that the goal is to help defuse ongoing neighborhood disputes that have “festered for years and years.”