Town Beach Investigation
A review of the town's email correspondence
As part of the Nottingham Blog’s investigation of the proposed closing of Town Beach announced in April in a Board of Selectmen meeting, a right-to-know request was made for email correspondence about the beach.
Since then, the board has reversed course, deciding to keep the beach open as usual this year, with the exception of hiring a part-time attendant and of planning a formal review of the beach’s 2025 season utilization and rule adherence at the end of the summer season.
A review of this correspondence reveals a few things the public may wish to know.
The Town Administrator held a meeting on Friday, April 4, to discuss plans for the 2025 seasonal opening of the beach. By inference, this meeting prompted the Director of Parks and Recreation to - instead of as usual, giving a plan for her department’s operation of the beach for the season - propose that the beach either be closed or, if kept open, there should be a paid attendant on site for all hours during which the beach is open. This proposal was presented to the board the following Monday.
The board appeared to have had no notice of this proposal prior to its April 7 meeting; however, Selectman Dabrieo was invited to the April 4 meeting.
The owners of Beach Road filed three trespassing complaints with the Police Department by email. These complaints were not put into the Department’s call log. One of the complaints was about a trespasser on Beach Road. The site of the second complaint was the private road leading to their home, which is not near the beach (although the behavior of these trespassers was particularly deplorable). The third complaint involved someone digging for artifacts on their property. These last two incidents appear not to have anything to do with the existence of Town Beach.
The owners of Beach Road sent an email to the Board of Selectmen describing their concerns with trespassing, liability, rule enforcement, and harassment on December 6, 2023. The town did not respond to this email. Due to the town’s failure to respond, the owners officially terminated public access on Beach Road on January 26, 2024. On February 5, the board met with the owners in a non-public session to resolve the issue. The first date the Town Attorney did any work associated with Beach Road was March 28, 2024. The next times were April 8, May 13, and July 1. The delay in getting a legal agreement with the owners resulted in Town Beach not opening on time for the 2024 season.
Many citizens have written to the board with concerns about losing access to Town Beach, and many others have provided a large number of suggestions for improving the situation.
The Police Chief had this to say about Town Beach:
Hey folk. I just wanted to give you my experience with the Nottingham town beach as of recent. I grew up in Nottingham. I still have family that lives there, last week. I took a ride down to the beach a little nostalgia. Crossed over the damn to take a picture of Wild. Iris walked around on the actual beach and left. I think you should know that I did not understand. There was private property being owned with the access road, the damn, or other parts of the beach I am unfamiliar with the town, not owning. I caused no harm took a picture took a walk. Did not enter the woods. And I left. Today I had a phone call from the Nottingham police, telling me that I was being issued a trespassing notice, and banned from the Nottingham Beach for life, even though I have family that lives there. There are cameras big brother is watching. If the owners are reading this, please understand. I did not have a full understanding of what was going on, just went back for a good memory, which I had one, and took pictures of beautiful flowers. I saw the house being built. I did not walk in the woods, and I had no intention of interrupting your privacy. Best of luck to you. You are always welcome to our beaches on the Seacoast.