Opinion ID: 2446086
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Party Status

Text: [¶ 12] Friends bore the burden of proving that it met the definition of an aggrieved party. See id. ¶ 14, 973 A.2d at 739. Because matters before a local board of appeals are conducted in a fashion far less formal than court proceedings, an appellant need not have formally appeared as a party as long as it participated throughout the process. See Pride's Corner Concerned Citizens Ass'n v. Westbrook Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 398 A.2d 415, 417 (Me.1979). [¶ 13] Friends has not shown participation throughout the process. The Board requested that Friends show that it or some predecessor had participated before the Planning Board. As the court observed, Friends did not identify a single continuous participating member, and the minutes of the meeting do not identify any Friends members participating. Although a number of people connected to Friends appear to have attended the Board hearing, none of them stepped forward to state that they had participated in the Planning Board meeting as members of or on behalf of Friends. Under those circumstances, the Board did not err in finding insufficient evidence of participation. [1] Because participation was not shown, we need not address the Board and Evergreen's argument that an unincorporated entity cannot be a party before a board.