Asselin said that the municipality is currently in litigation in probate court with the estate of Jerry Cardone, a 74-year-old artist who died on Dec. 23, 2015 in Bangor.
Over the past 23 years, Cardone — known locally as “The Dinosaur Man” — had displayed wood carvings and scrap metal constructions of dinosaurs, aliens, palm trees, totem poles and other pop-culture pieces in his yard.
The towering sculptures included Santa, Bigfoot and a rooftop gazebo in the shape of a flying saucer.
Aroostook County Superior Court Justice E. Allen Hunter ruled on Nov. 15, 2010, that the property constituted an automobile graveyard and a junkyard without permits under state statute and was a “public nuisance” under Houlton code. The site had become so cluttered that Cardone no longer could drive his truck onto the property, and Hunter could not walk unimpeded through the yard when he visited it before making his ruling.
In August 2011, after 10 years of negotiating with Cardone to clean up his property, then town manager Doug Hazlett instructed town employees and contractors to clean up much of the nearly 7-acre property. The town then presented Cardone with a bill for $56,038 for the 427 hours of work that went into the effort. Town officials stated at the time that they planned to put a lien on the property and recoup the costs through the future sale of the grounds.
According to Asselin, the town has a lien against the property that he estimated was between $80,000 and $90,000. Town Attorney Dan Nelson was not available Friday for official figures.
“It may be more than that,” Asselin said. “The goal is to acquire the property through probate. I suspect at this point that is going to happen, that the town will take ownership. There is a lot that needs to be done to it, besides clearing what remains on the property away. A phase one environmental study has to be done, because I believe there was a transmission and garage operated on the property before he owned it. So I believe it is going to be years before this case is settled.”
Cardone’s work attracted local, state and nationwide attention during his lifetime, including from TruTV, which in 2010 named his property one of its “51 Weirdest Tourist Traps in America.”
