By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

South Portland City Councilor Linda Boudreau said she has always wanted the city “to protect the opportunity” for an east-west connector road between Highland Avenue and Route 1.

“We need that option,” she said. “It’s been voted down by the public before, but times change.”

The proposed connector would run adjacent to the Wainwright athletic fields on land currently owned by resident Theodore Wainwright – property City Manager Jim Gaily said South Portland has been haggling over for five years.

On Monday, Wainwright said he was willing to make a deal.

“I’m not going to sell land to the city,” he said. “I’m giving it to them.”

The offer could be more complicated than a one-time gift to the city, however, as local developer, business owner and former city councilor Vincent Maietta said arrangements between the city and Wainwright are associated with a lawsuit that was addressed and may have been settled after the Sentry deadline earlier this week. 

Maietta’s attorney, Tom McKeon, said Wainwright originally filed a lawsuit against the city after some of Maietta’s employees misplaced some loam around the Wainwright athletic fields. McKeon said loam removed from the property was quickly replaced. 

“The city has an agreement that no loam will be taken from Wainwright field,” he said. “Everything that happened was publicly acknowledged and fixed, but Wainwright felt there was more loam taken.”

Now, three and a half years after the lawsuit was originally filed, Maietta said he views the potential agreement as Wainwright’s “way to save face.”

“The lawsuit didn’t prove anything,” McKeon said. “The agreement is designed to get the city what it needs and give Wainwright an opportunity to say that he won.”

While Wainwright may be giving the property to the city free of charge, Maietta said the agreement could provide Wainwright with $80,000 for “legal fee reimbursement,” and include a prepared speech portraying Wainwright in a positive light for Gaily to read publicly. 

The city could use $20,000 Maietta’s insurance company is paying the city to subsidize the $80,000 reimbursement, McKeon said.

“He dragged my family name through the mud for two years,” Maietta said. “I wouldn’t pay him 15 cents; I have insurance for this type of thing.”

Wainwright’s attorney failed to return phone calls from the Sentry, and Gaily originally declined to “speak to the agreement.” Later, Gaily said he was not aware any meeting concerning the lawsuit or Wainwright’s property abutting the Wainwright athletic field had been scheduled.

“The city and Mr. Wainwright have been working to reduce a settlement agreement to writing.  We expect to have this completed this week, at which time the agreement will be a public record,” former city legal counsel Mary Kahl wrote in an email on Monday.