Part 2 of The Big Lie-Who Owns Lot 36?

Published in the Republican Journal Thursday February 1, 2024

by Kim Ervin-Tucker, Esq.

Photo by Becca Hoskins

The industrial land-based salmon factory that Nordic Aquafarms Inc. proposed to build in Belfast requires placement of two seawater intake pipes and a wastewater discharge pipe almost a mile into Penobscot Bay within the municipal boundaries of Northport.

Since 2018, multiple lawsuits have been filed challenging Nordic’s proposal to bury its pipes in the upland property owned by Janet and Richard Eckrote (Tax Map 29, Lot 36), and the adjacent intertidal land (which Jeffrey Mabee and Judith Grace claimed that they have owned since 1991). A quiet title case, filed in July 2019 to resolve the ownership issue, went to trial on June 22-24, 2021.

As explained in Part 1 (Jan. 18 Republican Journal, page A5), on June 23, 2021, Nordic paid $650,000 to the Eckrotes ostensibly to convey their property to the city of Belfast “for a park.” However, before the city had even recorded the Eckrotes’ deed in the Waldo County Registry of Deeds on July 16, 2021, the mayor had already deeded the Eckrote property to Nordic on July 15, 2021 — with then-city attorney Bill Kelly delivering that deed to Nordic’s attorneys. Nordic has left that July 15, 2021, deed unrecorded — it sits in a drawer in the office of Nordic’s counsel and registered agent Joanna Tourangeau at Drummond Woodsum in Portland.

In addition, on Sept. 3, 2021, the city gave Nordic an easement — drafted by Nordic’s counsel — purporting to grant Nordic the right to industrially develop Lot 36 and the adjacent intertidal land for its pipes and the right to build an industrial pump house on Lot 36 (perhaps the 2.78-acre property can be named “Pump House Park”).

The Eckrotes-to-Belfast conveyance was part of a Nordic-city plan to use eminent domain to take Mabee and Grace’s intertidal land (regardless of the result of the quiet title litigation) to facilitate Nordic’s industrial development of Lot 36 and the adjacent intertidal land.

That scheme was concocted by lawyers for Nordic, as were the contracts between the city and Nordic detailing the plan. The goal of the scheme was to take private property from 40-plus-year citizens of Belfast (Mabee and Grace) and property rights belonging to them, and to other Belfast landowners, and give that land to Nordic — a foreign corporation. The other goal was to nullify a potentially adverse decision by Maine’s courts in the quiet title case before any ownership decision was entered.

The first contract to implement the scheme was drafted by Nordic’s lawyers and signed on April 21, 2021. The second contract to implement it was drafted and revised by Nordic’s lawyers and executed by Belfast Mayor Eric Sanders on July 9, 2021.

Under the terms of their July 9, 2021, Purchase and Sale Agreement, the city and Nordic would exchange deeds for Lot 36 at closing. The city would receive a deed from the Eckrotes for Lot 36 and a deed from Nordic for whatever rights Nordic had to Lot 36 and the adjacent intertidal land, obtained from release deeds Nordic obtained in 2019 from 10 people Nordic falsely claimed were “heirs of Harriet L. Hartley” (the owner in 1946 of the lots now designated as Belfast Tax Map 29, Lots 38 through 29 and part of Lot 24).

In exchange, at the same time, the city would give Nordic a deed conveying to Nordic everything the city received from those two deeds, thus conveying Lot 36 to Nordic. Nordic agreed to hold that City-to-Nordic deed “in escrow” — not recording it. Per their Purchase and Sale Agreement, if the city gave Nordic an easement, in the format attached to that agreement as Exhibit D, within 45 days of signing the July 9, 2021, Purchase and Sale Agreement, and the land covered by the easement was “free of the ‘Alleged Title Defects,’” Nordic would “destroy” that deed conveying Lot 36 to Nordic.

However, if the city failed to deliver the easement to Nordic within 45 days (i.e., by Aug. 23, 2021), “free of the ‘Alleged Title Defects,’” Nordic was free to “release and record” the City-to-Nordic deed at any time thereafter.

The “Alleged Title Defects” are defined in Exhibit B of the July 9, 2021, Purchase and Sale Agreement as: (i) Mabee-Grace’s ownership claims to the intertidal land adjacent to Lot 36; (ii) the Conservation Easement on the intertidal land adjacent to Lot 36; and (iii) the right to enforce the “residential purposes only” restriction on upland Lot 36 that a list of landowners held, including Mabee and Grace. Although the city signed the Exhibit D easement to Nordic, granting Nordic the right to use Lot 36 and the adjacent intertidal land for its industrial pipes, the city did not deliver the executed easement within 45 days of the execution of the July 9, 2021, Purchase and Sale Agreement, free of the “Alleged Title Defects.

Lawyers for the city and Nordic held the closing on July 15, 2021. The city received the June 23, 2021, Eckrotes-to-City deed and the July 10, 2021, Nordic-to-City deed (referred to in the July 9, 2021, Purchase and Sale Agreement as “Hartley Rights” deed). In exchange, on July 15, 2021, the city delivered a deed Mayor Sanders executed to Nordic on July 15, 2021 (referred to as the “City/Nordic deed” in the July 9, 2021, Purchase and Sale Agreement).

The city’s failure to meet the terms of that agreement with Nordic are significant. First, the contractual deadline for executing and delivering the easement was Aug. 23, 2021, but the city did not comply until Sept. 3, 2021. Second, the land covered by the easement was not “free of the ‘Alleged Title Defects’” on Aug. 23, 2021, or even on Sept. 3, 2021. In fact, the land is still not “free” of those “Alleged Title Defects” even now. Thus, Nordic had no legal obligation to destroy the July 15, 2021, City-to-Nordic deed and, as of Aug. 23, 2021, Nordic became the owner in fact of Lot 36.

In a January 2022 letter, Nordic lawyer/agent Tourangeau confirmed to the city’s current attorney, Kristin Collins, that she had not destroyed the July 15, 2021, deed, but continues to hold it in her possession — unrecorded — thus concealing its existence from the public.

However, recording a deed is not a requirement for ownership to pass or for the conveyance to be binding between the parties to the transaction (Nordic and the city). All that is required is execution and delivery of a deed and, in this case, failure to perform any further conditions to which the parties agreed. In other words, Nordic and the city know that Nordic owns Lot 36 and has owned it since Aug. 23, 2021.

However, Nordic and the city continue to falsely claim in public that the city owns this parcel AND the city has claimed in its Tax Commitment Book that Lot 36 is exempt from property taxes because it is owned by the municipality. This is not true. Nordic has owned, but has not paid property taxes on, Lot 36 since Aug. 23, 2021.

That property, with improvements, is currently assessed at a value of $332,400. In 2021, prior to this conveyance, the property taxes on this parcel (which Nordic had paid for the Eckrotes since 2018) were $7,246.80. Thus, Nordic has failed to pay more than $14,000 in property taxes on Lot 36, formerly owned by the Eckrotes, since ownership of that property vested in the corporation on Aug. 23, 2021 — with the knowledge and complicity of city officials.

In addition, rather than the Nordic project providing Belfast taxpayers with “the greatest tax benefits in 1,000 years,” as former city Councilor Mike Hurley has said, taxpayers also have not received half of the real estate transfer taxes due from the $650,000 the Eckrotes received for the conveyance. Why? Because, on the Real Estate Transfer Tax Declaration Nordic’s counsel filed on July 16, 2021, the Grantee was listed as a tax-exempt municipality — not as Nordic.

Meanwhile, taxpayers continue to incur attorneys’ fees for the city’s attorneys as they continue to push the Nordic project in pending litigation.

When will Belfast taxpayers ask their City Council why it continues to spend the people’s limited resources on this zombie project that, in February 2023, was judicially determined by Maine’s highest court to have no path to the sea for its pipes and, thus, no ability to construct this environmentally damaging project as proposed?

Attorney Kim Ervin Tucker of Lincolnville represents Jeffrey Mabee and Judith Grace, The Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area, the Maine Lobstering Union, and lobstermen Wayne Canning and David Black in a number of lawsuits related to Nordic Aquafarms’ land-based fish farm proposed for Belfast.

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of Kim Ervin Tucker and not those of this newspaper.