Investigation Opened About Town Beach
The evidence so far.
For the second year in a row, town residents are upset about the potential closing of Town Beach. Hopes from last year that the issues had been resolved have now been dashed.
Despite the fact that no issues with Town Beach were reported at any Board of Selectmen meeting at any time during or shortly after the 2024 season, eight months after the end of the season, and less than two months prior to the expected start of the 2025 season, issues about Town Beach suddenly and unexpectedly arose, ripping the bandaid off of matters that had previously seemed to be resolved.
In several cases, both last year and this year, both at Board of Selectmen meetings and on social media, the owners of the access road to Town Beach have been accused of wanting the beach closed. This despite numerous public avowals by the landowners that they wished to keep the beach open.
This year, these accusations fly in the face of the evidence. The board has told the public that the town’s Parks & Recreation Director, Kortney Dorow Duball, has advised the board to close the beach. Not only did the Director recommend that the beach be closed, the only alternative the board said the Director had given them to closing the beach was to greatly reduce the hours the beach was open, and to have the remaining hours fully covered by an on-site attendant - an attendant presumably reporting to the Parks & Recreation Director, and adding to the department’s budget. It would seem to be clear that the board’s actions this year are in reaction to this recommendation.
It is noteworthy that at the end of the 2023 season, the Director of Parks & Recreation was aware that the Town Beach’s swimlines needed to be replaced, but failed to acquire new ones. The lack of swimlines was given as one of the reasons for delaying the opening of the beach in the 2024 season. It would seem that the Director was expecting the beach to be closed and that the expense would be unnecessary. This was just a few weeks prior to the publicly anticipated opening of Town Beach.
As far as I know, the board was neither presented with nor considered any options other than what the Director of Parks & Recreation recommended. Police patrols appear to have been ruled out, on the grounds that the police do not have the time for this. No substantiation of this has been provided to the public.
Several people at the May 5 board meeting suggested security cameras as alternatives. I wrote to the Town Administrator on April 10 to suggest security cameras. The idea seems obvious. The police already monitor several security cameras installed in other locations.
At the May 5 board meeting, Selectman Dabrieo said a security camera would cost $1,000 because it would require a satellite link, as no wifi was available. This does not appear to be correct. My experience is that ATT cellular wifi reaches that spot. ATT’s coverage map says it reaches there. See the area circled in red below, taken from ATT’s map.
It’s well-known among residents who live near Pawtuckaway Lake that the only cellular service available for many areas around the lake is ATT. But where did the conclusion that there’s no cellular wifi at Town Beach come from?
Last year’s issues with the opening of Town Beach originated in concerns from the owners of the access road that they were being made liable for legal damages associated with providing access to Town Beach. They petitioned the town to formally assume liability. After long delays involving the town’s former Town Attorney, Upton & Hatfield - delays that appear to have resulted in the board putting out a request for proposals for legal services, which in turn resulted in Upton & Hatfield being replaced by Drummond Woodsum as Town Attorney - an agreement was reached. Town Beach was opened for the season, several weeks late, but otherwise as usual.
As far as everyone knew at the end of summer 2024, the issues about Town Beach had been resolved. Not until the beginning of April the following year was the board or the public informed that there had been any problems with the beach in the prior season. The person who informed the board of this was the Director of Parks & Recreation. Why was the board not informed in a more timely manner? Had the issue been presented to the board in September, would there likely have been an outcome different from the one that we are going to get now?
The public was told that the Police Department did not have statistics specific to the beach, but that they had 22 to 24 incidents around that location. No further details have been provided to the public. By this loose description, an incident in which someone was caught speeding on Deerfield Road near the intersection with Town Beach Road would seem to be included. Information about the severity of the incidents is also lacking. Was there a mugging, or a teenager found smoking pot, or a dog on the beach? Specifically, what were the problems that warranted the Director of Parks & Recreation's recommendation to close Town Beach? Shouldn’t this be part of the record and open for public discussion?
Because of these important unanswered questions, the Nottingham Blog has opened an investigation. A right-to-know request for the following information has been submitted to the town.
Details about the claimed 22 to 24 police incidents that have been associated with Town Beach. Where were the incidents? What were the incidents? What was the resolution of the incidents? What incidents were on the property of the abutting landowner? The beach? The dam? The access road? What were the dates and times of the incidents?
Invoices from Upton & Hatfield for 2023 through 2025 associated with Town Beach.
All correspondence concerning Town Beach in the years 2023 through 2025 to or from Selectmen, the Town Administrator, employees of the Parks & Recreation Department, and the Police Department.
Thank you Doug for investigating and exposing the facts of this issue. You can see by your publication of the police log that the BOS has not been transparent to the concerns of Nottingham residents who use the town beach. In your post, the majority of the calls were actually made outside of the season or after hours. There were 2 calls for people locked in after hours and one intoxicated person on the lake near the beach, not at the beach. That hardly seems to make it necessary to hire a part-time seasonal beach attendant. I believe imposing a fine for those who violate the beach rules is absolutely the way to go. I also believe that a public meeting should have been held by the BOS so that residents would have been able to share their thoughts and provide valuable suggestions or feedback prior to them making their decision that if a beach attendant is not hired then the beach would not be open as stated by Selectboard member Tim Dabrio. That’s why I started a petition to keep the Nottingham Town Beach open, which currently has 339 signatures. You can find it on change.org. I look forward to more facts that you may uncover and I’m praying every night that the beach opens this year so I may continue to enjoy it with my grandchildren. Thanks again!
Thanks Doug. Looking forward to you publishing all of the results.
I think it is very important to consider PD staffing which was lacking in the article, but will hopefully be turned up in your investigation.
Police Officers are EXPENSIVE, and Nottingham simply does not have that many of them. It is also important to understand that this burden already ultimately already falls on the PD and realistically, this is likely a burden that does not fall into "emergency" category. Operating a Town Beach means the PD is going to need to respond to calls for service at the Beach, regardless of it is open or not, with likely more calls when it is open, especially if there is no other enforcement "entity" (gate attendant, parking enforcement by town employees, etc). So the PD is going to need to respond to these "non" emergency calls for mainly "peace keeping", misdemeanor and violation level offenses. While the SINGLE officer on duty, especially on the weekends, is at the Town Beach checking on parking, trespassing people, dealing with an intoxicated person, etc that officer is NOT available to respond when someone reports someone is breaking into their house or to a motor vehicle accident or a report of a drunk driver speeding on RT4 or just otherwise patrolling and conducting traffic enforcement. Ultimately, the CONVENIENCE and added QUALITY OF LIFE for some residents using the Town Beach is going to detrimentally affect the safety and quality of service the PD is able to provide which is likely why the PD will push hard against this, rightfully so.
The Town Beach is a great service to residents and everything should be done to keep it open. I do think there are some misplaced attitudes on the subject with some people saying "IT MUST BE DONE" and other people being like "IT CAN'T BE DONE". I think it is clear that is CAN be done, but there is a cost to everything; nothing is free. Regardless of if the problems existed years ago or not, there does seem to be problems and I do not find it acceptable dumping an already strained PD with babysitting the beach. There should be some research done for how much it would cost to resolve this and the data you turn up is going to help inform this topic directly.
What would it cost to pay the PD detail rate per hour? How many hours would the PD think there needs to be a detail? Maybe its not a detail at all, maybe it is just an extra officer on during the summer memorial day to labor day. This would allow for increased coverage given the seasonality of some of the lake homes. Personally, I think this would be a great idea.
How much would it cost to hire an attendant?
How much would it cost to hire a life guard? (That seems to be one of the concerns of the Rec Department)
What does the new Law Firm think the liability to the Town is allowing swimming without a life guard? This could be millions of dollars and may be the best reason to close the beach
Doug Looking to your investigation to do the leg work and get to the bottom of those numbers!
Once these numbers are known then it can become a discussion. What is the estimated use of the beach? (**This is a key problem because there are no statistics on this. This is something an attendant could track**) How much would it cost for a beach sticker to fund all of the things needed? (My guess is WAY more than the users of the beach are willing to pay but that is for them to decide).
The next question becomes, is this something voters are willing to accept a tax increase for to fix and is it actually such a high priority that it doesn't get cut when working with the tax cap. Given this would be new and the tax cap doesn't even really allow existing services to function as needed, seems unlikely. Might be successful as a petitioned warrant article depending on the total cost.
BOTTOM LINE: Don't expect to get more for free. The world is changing and what once could be a "free" benefit, now will cost a significant amount of money to maintain without creating a significant liability. What exactly the money is allocated to and how much it will cost is TBD and requires more info.
Keep up the good work Doug.