The Parks and Recreation Commission’s attempt to add four 50-foot parking spaces for boat trailers and their vehicles failed to get the required 2/3 majority needed to pass. Parks and Rec representative Joe Schmidt said that the parking spaces would stave off safety problems from trailers parked along Pond Road and would replace the ad hoc in-the-woods boat trailer parking that was lost in the storm water runoff improvements last summer. Harbormaster Bob O’Shea said the parking spaces would reduce confrontations the young beach staffers have had with frustrated fisherman.
But residents had other ideas. Pond Road resident Mark Bierbower said he had not seen significant traffic safety problems in his 20 years of daily dog-walking to the beach. He also thought the $30,000 price tag was excessive. Brown Road resident Dave Durrant recalled summers past when there were fewer motor boats on the pond. “We want to discourage them, not encourage them,” he said.
The complex problems of balancing recreational use, preservation, safety, and required open access for one of the town’s more valued assets is sure to resurface at future town meetings.
