OTISFIELD — Officials say differences between the Friends of Scribner Hill and town officials about whether there has been enough due diligence over a cellphone tower proposal may put the project in jeopardy.

“We’re trying to let this unfold the way it should,” Selectman Rick Micklon said.

The U.S. Cellular permitting process is under Oxford County Superior Court supervision while the Planning Board draws up court-ordered “facts of findings” in hopes of satisfying the court’s mandate and letting the permitting process continue.

The company wants to put a 180-foot tower on off Scribner Hill Road.

Micklon said Monday that he is hearing from department heads and the general public concerned about losing the project because of published reports about the Scribner Hill group’s claim that their voice was denied in the fact-finding process.

“We’ve been trying to take the high road,” Micklon said. The board’s intent is to not use the news media or other public forums to respond to the Scribner Hill group concerns, he said.

“It’s still their right to voice their opinion.”

The Friends of Scribner Hill said it would continue its court fight after the Planning Board decided not to reopen the record Aug. 7 to hear further evidence during fact-finding deliberations. Justice Robert Clifford told the board to develop its findings of fact but did not order it to open the record to public comment.

Although the Planning Board chose not to take additional evidence, it and the Board of Selectmen stayed in the Community Hall after the meeting was adjourned to hear comments from Friends of Scribner Hill.

Friends of Scribner Hill had participated in its appeal of the Planning Board’s permit approval during a three-hour meeting with the Board of Appeals in March. Micklon said Friends of Scribner Hill contributed what Micklon said were 49 comments to the record.

Minutes of the Planning Board and Board of Selectmen meetings from January through June show that except for one selectmen’s meeting and at the urging of Micklon, only two people have commented on the cell tower project during the public participation portion of the meetings. Public participation is on each board’s agenda at each open meeting.

Micklon said he expects some public comment at Wednesday’s scheduled Board of Selectmen’s meeting, perhaps from some department heads, but the board will not discuss the matter while it is under litigation.

Fire Chief Michael Hooker, who said he does not intend to be at the meeting unless requested, said Monday that the cell tower is “a big opportunity” for the community.

With about 30 percent of Otisfield year-round, summer residents having cellphone communication only, and Fire Department and rescue portables having a radius of a mile at best in many areas of town, Hooker said it is imperative that the cell tower project be allowed to continue.

“I’m a proponent for it. It’s a big plus for emergency and public safety,” he said.

The Fire Department gets about 150 calls a year, and many of them are medical, but the response can be dangerously affected by the lack of wireless communication, he said.

Last March, for example, when a 67-year-old Gray man crashed his single-engine float plane into the ice-covered Pleasant Lake, Selectman Len Adler, who was first on the scene, was unable to communicate with the fire chief or anyone for help.

“He couldn’t get a signal out because he was in a basin. He couldn’t get (a signal) over the mountain,” Hooker said. To establish a critical line of communication, the chief was forced to break into the county emergency radio signal and could not release it until he established communications with the emergency scene on the lake.

“That’s the type of limited capability we have,” he said.

[email protected]