ALFRED —Property owners and the public will have a chance to air their views Monday when the York County Courthouse Site Selection Commission meets.

But while the original thinking was that the commission might decide which of the three properties being considered for a new, consolidated courthouse might be made that day, that decision is now scheduled for Friday.

“There will be time for property owners to make a presentation, time for the public to speak, and the plan is not to have a vote until Friday,” said Mary Ann Lynch of the Administrative Office of the Courts. “It’s important for the commission to hear from the public, and think about (the decision).”

Legislation sponsored this spring by Sen. Linda Valentino, D-Saco, provided $65 million for a new court building and to form a commission to recommend a site to Chief Justice Leigh Saufley. The commission narrowed their selection from 27 sites to two in Biddeford – the so-called Pate property on Route 1 between the Five Points intersection and the Biddeford connector to the Maine Turnpike; and on Barra Road, the site of a number of new medical office buildings. The third site is in Alfred, adjacent to York County Jail.

At a commission meeting in early October it was stated that the Pate property is owned by the city of Biddeford and carries a purchase price of $650,000, while the Barra Road property, owned by a private developer, lists for $580,000. The Alfred property is adjacent to York County Jail and is owned by the County of York, which has offered it at no cost to the state.

Among the factors the commission will consider are proximity to a major road or turnpike, availability of utilities like natural gas, water, sewer and three-phase electrical service.

Members of the commission toured the three sites earlier this month.

Valentino on Friday said she has concerns about the odor coming from the septic system at the jail. She pointed out the Pate property is a flat lot, and that Barra Road is in a professional office park, with utilities at the ready. Both Biddeford sites are near the Maine Turnpike.

Valentino and commission member Anne Marie Mastraccio said the selection will come down to how the three properties score on the criteria the panel had agreed upon.

“It will be about sitting down and doing my rating; look at what we agreed to and putting in my numbers,” Mastraccio said. “When you do that, it’s usually clear what the consensus will be.”

The official deadline for the commission to make its recommendation is Jan. 1, but the group’s chairman, Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Thomas Humphrey, had encouraged the group to make a decision sooner. The commission began their work Aug. 3.

The new court building will consolidate the three district courts that are located in Biddeford, Springvale and York as well as the York County Superior Court, which sits at the county-owned York County Court House in Alfred. The latter was built in 1806, expanded in 1854, and rebuilt in 1934 after a fire.

A court feasibility report shows it takes an average of 253 days for a case to make its way through York County Superior Court, while in Cumberland County, which has the same number of cases annually, it takes less than half that number – 107 days.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or [email protected].