Police Provide More Data About Town Beach
Incident count revised from 12 to 15. Only 1 incident during operating hours.
This article is a follow-up to Town Beach Police Records Made Public, published May 8. That article was about the report generated by the Police Department, provided to the Board of Selectmen on April 4, and mentioned by the board in the April 7 meeting. The report contained 21 records during the 2024 calendar year, of which only 12 referred to actual incidents at Town Beach. The remainder involved other police actions, such as serving no-trespass orders. This somehow got inflated and misinterpreted to be 24 incidents over the summer, requiring calls to the police.
The report was provided to the board with a caveat that some incidents might have been missed because Town Beach has no street address, making incidents there difficult to identify in the database.
I received a complaint that the report provided to the board did not include all of the incidents. The person who complained said they knew of incidents that they personally had called the police about that were not in the report. Because of this, I asked the Police Department to redo the search, with looser criteria, in an attempt to find the missing incidents.
This is a hot issue in town right now. At the April 7 meeting, the board discussed recommendations from the Director of Parks and Recreation, Kortney Dorow Duball, that the board had received on April 4. The text she sent to the board is below. (The most relevant parts of the text are in bold. Note that the redundant part of the text is in the original.)
Hello all, I wanted to provide some information to the board from the Rec’s perspective on the town beach season 2024. Last year the decision to open the beach was made at the very last minute, which did cause a bit of panic when it came to finding gate openers and closers and getting the beach lines in. I was lucky that two of my staff members stepped up, but they will not be returning, nor could they cover all summer long with family trips, etc. There was a misunderstanding that someone would be there all day, but that type of position was not in the operating budget at the time and is not for this year either. With the uncertainty, the Rec will not be utilizing the beach this year and we cannot secure enough lifeguards- we need at least two and they must be 16 years or older. The community cleanup day is in two weeks and we will not have the beach as an option this year. As I have said before, we have never really had the resources to run this property properly (at least since I have been here). We cannot hold anyone to the rules as we cannot oversee that property daily or have a team of staff down there in the summer. I pay gate attendants to open and close the gate and that is in two weeks and we will not have the beach as an option this year. As I have said before, we have never really had the resources to run this property properly (at least since I have been here). We cannot hold anyone to the rules as we cannot oversee that property daily or have a team of staff down there in the summer. I pay gate attendants to open and close the gate and that is all. Kayaks are launched, dogs are brought in, and drug and alcohol use are common. I do not recommend opening the town beach until there is a plan to have someone staffed down there during the hours of operation. Last year we received a few calls from community members about the beach not opening on time, but once it was opened it was quiet on our end and seemed like not much use during the days. I did have members of the community say they were still going to use it as a kayaking launch, to which I told them they needed to go down to the boat launch for. It does seem like there isn’t a lot of respect for the rules that we have posted there. I understand that there were still many trespassing calls to the PD. Whatever the board decides, the Rec will do what we can to assist in monitoring this property.
At the May 5 meeting, the board heard a large number of residents protest the Director’s recommendation to close Town Beach. There were objections to the claims that there were lots of problems at the beach, and that an on-site paid attendant was necessary for any time in which the beach might be open to the public.
There’s an online petition with over 340 signatures asking the board to keep Town Beach open.
The revised report has 57 records. Most of the increase is because this report includes records of routine police checks on the property.
In three of these routine checks, the police found vehicles of non-residents. In all three cases, however, the vehicles turned out to belong to guests of residents.
The expanded report identified three additional incidents:
A call on July 4 about a trespasser. The police were unable to make contact with the trespasser.
A call on July 16 during beach operating hours about a dog and their owner at the beach. Police arrived and told them to leave.
A call on August 1 from a Nottingham resident who got locked in at the beach.
This produces a revised total of 15 incidents at the beach in 2024. Of these 15 incidents, only one occurred during operating hours. Three were about people who got locked in. One of the lock-ins was a non-resident. The remaining 11 incidents were all about trespassing and suspicions of trespassing during times when the beach was closed.
Based on the available information, there appear to be some contradictions and anomalies.
Why did the Director make the recommendation so near the expected opening date for the beach, rather than at the end of last season?
The Director said, “Last year the decision to open the beach was made at the very last minute.” Although Town Beach has been open every summer for over 50 years, it appears that the Director expected that the beach would not open for last year’s season. Why did the Director have this expectation?
Why did the Director not budget for an attendant during the budgeting process if the Director thought that an attendant was necessary?
On what basis can the Director claim that there are lots of problems at the beach during operating hours when the police record shows only one, and the Director herself says last year that “it was quiet on our end and seemed like not much use during the days”?
The police records show incidents at the beach are more likely to occur when the beach is closed rather than open. How is this then evidence for either closing the beach or hiring an on-site attendant?
The raw data are available here:
It seems like you’re trying to place some blame on the Rec director with these questions which seem to be a moot point now anyway. Our rec department does an amazing job of programming all year long for residents of all ages, and with very minimal resources. Expecting the rec dept to oversee the town beach when they haven’t been appropriated the proper time or resources to prepare, especially in a job market like ours where every business struggles to find decent help, is unrealistic. Perhaps she expected the town beach wouldn’t open because of the issue with the new homeowners who’ve decided they’re going to control access to it for the first time in 50 years and that issue still hasn’t truly been resolved from what I’ve heard.
If people truly are using the town beach during open hours inappropriately and not following posted rules, it’s not safe to have a teenager or even two down there with the expectation that they will be able to control adults choosing to behave badly. Maybe that’s another reason the director is reluctant to have the beach open. Who wants that job?!?! (Maybe some local ICE agents, Proud Boys or Oathkeepers would volunteer.)
Has anyone asked how other towns run their town beaches? Strafford? Northwood?
In the course of the investigation, were the employees of the rec department interviewed? How many members of the BOS interviewed? The Town Administrator? Members of the Police Department? Fire and Rescue? I’m inclined to wonder why the BOS minutes of the May meeting which I referenced were excluded from the investigation.
Also, who exactly did the investigating? My first thought (probably erroneous) was Charla Stevens. Was the investigation requested by the BOS, and, therefore, an “official” investigation, or was it conducted by a concerned individual or group of individuals?
WMUR reported yesterday that, at this time, the city of Concord was “short” several lifeguards for the coming season. Apparently Nottingham is not the only municipality having difficulty securing summer “beach” help. Should a public, municipal beach be opened if there be no lifeguard/attendant on duty?
Last year, Nottingham was working with the default budget by decision of the voters. What impact might this have had on available re$ource$ last summer?
Is it safe to assume that the town beach will not be open this summer or, if it is, it will be open for very limited hours?
Finally, does it not make sense to identify problems and issues that have arisen in the past in order to deal with them more effectively in the days ahead?