A sorry situation in deed! City, county spend thousands bickering over verbiage

When Strafford County's Registrar of Deeds notified the City of Rochester in December that five easement deeds for land in Barrington weren't properly written, the city attorney could have reached out to county officials to find out what had to be corrected, but instead he filed a lawsuit in Strafford Superior Court that has so far cost county taxpayers more than $14,000 in legal fees.
So why did Strafford County Registrar of Deeds Catherine Berube refuse to accept the City of Rochester's Dec. 11 filings?
"You have to name the municipalities in which the property lies," she recently told The Rochester Voice. "The deeds that were submitted just said the property began "at a point in the town of Barrington."
"You have to name all the municipalities," Berube said. "These deeds just said at a point in Barrington."
She said the City of Rochester may have had some initial confusion as an earlier deed that used the same language was mistakenly filed, but "that was a clerical error," she said. "Everyone can make a mistake."
Berube further reasoned that just because an employee makes a mistake, that doesn't mean you change the process to conform with the mistake.
Just days after Berube's office rejected the improperly worded deeds, Rochester City Attorney Terence O'Rourke filed a writ of Mandamus, which is "an order from a court to an inferior government official ordering the government official to properly fulfill their official duties or correct an abuse of discretion," according an internet search.
Two months after O'Rourke's initial complain was filed, the county, represented by Dover Attorney Gregory D. Wirth, replied that the deeds "did not clearly state which communities th(e) property (wa)s located in."
O'Rourke and Wirth then both argued several motions back and forth over the next few months until on May 30 Strafford Superior Court Judge Daniel E. Will denied the writ of mandamus.
"The Register concedes that she has accepted deeds worded similarly to those the plaintiff tendered," Judge Will stated in his decision. "She explains that she recorded some in error and that others had basis, in their context, for recording. The fact, without more, of isolated inconsistency does not establish arbitrary conduct or bad faith. The plaintiff has submitted no additional facts or evidence to cast the Register's prior conduct in a bad light."
Rochester filed a motion to reconsider on June 10. It was denied on June 26.
Ironically, that same day the City of Rochester filed the five deeds properly, and they were duly recorded by the county.
The six-month legal battle left Strafford County Commission Chairman George Maglaras fuming, especially because he had sought privately to settle the matter with the City of Rochester prior to hiring legal counsel.
"This was absolutely ridiculous and a waste of time, money and effort for all involved," he said. "This squarely lands with the Rochester city attorney who cost the county over $11,000 in attorneys fees. I'm hoping the matter is over now that the courts have ruled twice in the county's favor."
There had been rumors that Rochester might appeal Judge Will's decision to the state's Supreme Court, but now that the city has seen the deeds properly filed, it may be a moot point.
Berube told The Rochester Voice that the county had spent some $14,500 in legal fees thus far, but a Rochester resident named Human, who changed his legal name about 10 years ago, noted during a July 16 workshop that we may never know what the city spent, because O'Rourke is a full-time employee.
In the past Rochester residents have sought to find out how much the city spent on a particular case, only to be told there are no such documents available..
"When you're contracting out legal work you have bills to specific issues, legal expenses are documented, but when you have a whole city legal department, that becomes a barrier to transparency," Human said.
In 2023 O'Rourke was paid a salary of almost $121,000 plus benefits of almost $49,000. The legal department's paralegal received a salary of $102,00 with benefits of $33,000.
Both Rochester City Manager Katie Ambrose and O'Rourke had no comment on Wednesday regarding this story. Both have refused comment on several stories The Rochester Voice has published over the past several months as the city continues to pursue its policy of denying The Rochester Voice Right to Know documents on the basis that The Rochester Voice is domiciled in the state of Maine, even while The Rochester Voice is incorporated in the state of New Hampshire.