Kennebunkport Beach Committee Reviews Summer, Eyes Budget Items

[1:12] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you. Welcome to the November 21st meeting of the Beach Advisory Committee. It's being held in a hybrid format. Most of the members are here. Chas Cadwell is attending virtually, I believe. Do you have him up there? Okay, perfect. Thank you. [1:33] Speaker B (unidentified): Chas, could you just say hello? [1:35] Chas Cadwell: I am here. Thank you. I can see you all very clearly. [1:38] Chair (presiding officer): Okay, great. Thank you, Chas. So the first item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from August 17th, and I know Holly had a couple of corrections and Chas had a couple of corrections, so I'm hoping that everyone can make those known so that they're in the record for this meeting. [1:56] Holly: Chas, do you want to go first? [1:58] Chas Cadwell: Sure. I had an edit to make to the paragraph on the traffic safety, and I was going to I would change it, the sentence that begins in July, I would change to read the following way. It said, the town utilized the BAC advice and agreed to buy and deploy four speed indicator signs. These arrived quickly after the July 1 start of the fiscal year and are deployed and functioning. And then I think further on, I would correct the location of the four signs to have the sentence end with end one on the eastbound portion of the other end of King's Highway. I sent these to Lynn, so I think she may have them, if that's what I proposed. [2:49] Chair (presiding officer): Okay, fine. That's great. Thank you. Holly, you had a couple other ones? I did. [2:53] Holly: On the first page under Section 3, third paragraph, requested a change from Berta to Roberta and reword the sentence to read, asked what activities are appropriate for the beach. The same paragraph second sentence. She was referencing hardballs not a wall. Her concern was dad's playing with their sons with a ball might hurt someone and lastly page 3 under section 4 B Natural resources just request to rewrite it. There isn't a definite definitive Hurt sentence was there isn't a definitive on the other 18 checks. So I just wanted to change it to it's not clear the fate [3:36] Chair (presiding officer): of the other 18 checks second full [3:48] Speaker E (unidentified): paragraph introduced a safety concern for the Park Avenue that should be Proctor Avenue entrance that she was talking about we don't have a Park Avenue yep okay [4:00] Chair (presiding officer): Perfect, thank you. With those corrections, are people in agreement to approve the minutes? Can I have a motion as amended? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Chas, you okay on those? Yes. Okay, great, thank you. The next section is public comment for anything that's not on the agenda, and with our overwhelming audience here, we're happy to entertain any comments you have or any that are from other participants online. I just don't want to go first. Oh, okay. All right, is [4:35] Chas Cadwell: there anybody, everybody online? We have 10 attendees on Zoom with no hands. [4:40] Chair (presiding officer): Okay. All right. Going once, going twice. Okay. So we're going to move on to working group reports. And my hope is that we can kind of have a recap of the summer and maybe, you know, are there any things that we need to think about as we go through the winter? So I'm hoping people can sort of highlight something along those lines as they go through. So I'm going to go to communications first with Holly. [5:04] Holly: Well, the only thing I really had was the new rules took effect for dogs on September 16th, so dogs are now allowed on the beach all day, but they are required on the leash from 12 to 6, but can be off leash otherwise. I don't think I had anything specific to, you know, this summer from a [5:27] Chair (presiding officer): communications perspective. Okay, well, thanks again for getting the constant contact out and keeping people in the loop on everything. Sure, just one quick [5:34] Speaker E (unidentified): quick comment on the dog rules. When they are allowed off leash, they are supposed to be under [5:39] Holly: voice control. So I had a question or thought. I mean, I was out there today and dogs were off leash all day, nobody's enforcing it, so it's, it's almost like, why do we have dog rules if there's no one enforcing them? Okay. [6:02] Speaker F (unidentified): Natural resources. Sure, I just like to comment on the dog [6:11] Speaker G (unidentified): thing too. I mean, it's, we don't have community safety officers except during the summer, so if someone sees a dog off leash that's badly behaving or they have a problem with it, you know, they have to call communications. That's, that's the procedure. [6:28] Chair (presiding officer): John, can you remind us of that phone number, please? I can. You always have it at your fingertips. I have it at my phone tip. [6:33] Speaker G (unidentified): Give me a second. As opposed to a 911 emergency. No, that's exactly [6:37] Chair (presiding officer): it. That's why I don't want to include it. It's not 911 worthy. [6:41] Speaker B (unidentified): Go ahead and I will look it up. Okay. Thank you. I will come back. [6:45] Speaker G (unidentified): Okay. So I'm going to start the natural resources with the water quality, because the last day for testing was on September 2nd, so that program is done for the summer. I went back through the whole summer, and at the main, the two main parts of the beach where they test, there were only four elevated readings the whole summer, and they were all at the one near the eastern arc. There weren't any elevated readings at the around the point, around the corner on the west, on the west side. There were 12 elevated readings at little on at Little River over the summer, and six elevated, oh, I should say that's the testing was from May 27th to September 2nd, so it's basically three months, June, July, and August. And there was 12 elevated readings at Little River, and six elevated rivers readings at the Batson's River. The town has permanently posted an advisory for that. You probably shouldn't be going in the water in the rivers at all. They have the signs posted at either river, or at the right ways near either river. The next thing I'm going to move on to is the dune restoration, which we're now almost two years out from the program, and so far so good. We haven't had any storms that have just barely come up to the edge of the dunes, so we've had no storm damage to the dunes, which is really good. I think the stake and twine works. I also think having quite a few plover nests this year in the eastern part, from Dinghy Point down towards Little River, the different colors, stake and twine, and the signs definitely help keep people out of the dunes. I never thought stake and twine would keep people out, but it does seem to work. It's not much of a barrier. I did not get the final numbers on the plovers. They have not, I, thought I found it today on the main Audubon site. And unfortunately, as I got reading, it was from September of 2025. So apparently they haven't posted the final numbers yet, but I have the same numbers from, last year, which was, I mean, from last month, which is,, you know, a record year with the, with 20 nesting pairs. And I did do a little more research. A nesting pair is a pair of birds that have laid at least one egg. that's what a nesting pair is, so we've had, you know, more nesting pairs and more chicks than ever before, so it's kind of cool, and that's really all [9:25] Speaker B (unidentified): I have, I do have one update on the dune grass work that John Crowder and I are doing with the our climate resiliency committee. As you might know, we have 30-some transects that go orthogonal across the dune between the sea and the street or the homes, and we have now three sets. I think we have a spring, fall, a spring of this year, and we're working to set up with probably more with UNE because Kennebunkport High School has some new rules in. They're not allowing kids to drive themselves, and that means you've got to get a school bus, and that really complicates things. But any rate, John and I are committed to see that it gets done, and these are measuring the density of the dune grass. So along those stakes we have three points and we go back each twice a year, the spring in the fall, and measure the density so that work is [10:36] Chair (presiding officer): continuing. Are the trends favorable from what you've seen so far? [10:40] Speaker B (unidentified): You know, trend is, we have two points on a graph, so the trend gets real straight. But the grass is doing well. Yeah, it seems like it. In 85% of the area. There's probably 15% that John and I are still scratching our heads trying to understand why it's most probably it was a bad bundle to start with because these grass, the grass come in individual bundles, and maybe these were on the shelf when they came, as we had thousands of them as you know, not bundles but a hundred of bundles plus, and so there are areas that just haven't done well, but we've been working with them. We tried a little fertilizer on them to see if that's going to help, and we'll know more I guess this fall when and we see if those did any better than the juxtaposed spots. So it's fun stuff. And actually, I may be coming to this committee because we don't have the high school kids. We may be putting out a call for able-bodied. Volunteer opportunity. And actually, it's a lot of fun. [11:48] Chair (presiding officer): Do you have a date for when you're going to do it? [11:50] Speaker G (unidentified): No. Do you have to know how to count? [11:53] Speaker B (unidentified): You do have to know how to count. That's the only requirement. requirement. And the ability to walk between the shoots of grass [12:00] Speaker F (unidentified): are the only two requirements. So is this an October kind of thing? It's an October. Okay, we'll keep this posted. October kind of thing. [12:08] Speaker G (unidentified): I keep looking for infill from the healthier areas around it too. [12:12] Speaker B (unidentified): But they come, right? You can see the shoots. You can see the shoots. Yeah, it's fascinating. You see them particularly down at the edge. You see them aside where you can, you'll see a clump and you'll see just this long linear of little sprouts coming up. [12:24] Chair (presiding officer): Yeah, it's kind of amazing. [12:25] Speaker B (unidentified): It's not rhizomes. What are those called? Rhizomes? It is the rhizomes going out and then popping up the bench. Pretty cool. [12:34] Chair (presiding officer): That's good. Bill, I'd like to say thank you also for you to keep maintaining the twine during the summer. [12:40] Speaker G (unidentified): I know there were a couple times. I did. I didn't do it. I should have gone back in August. I noticed the one at Bel Air, some of the steaks in the right-of-way itself. I'm going to leave them up again this year in the right-of-way. I think it's a good idea. Oh, I did forget to mention that the Rotary Club of Kennebunkport last Saturday did our beach walk with trash bags and picked up about, if you count the, there were four trash bags full of trash, which we just put, fortunately, you know, we have the big bins, so we just put them in there. But the highway crew left their one-ton dump truck at the sewer pump station, and I lugged up a couple of the heavier pieces of construction material off the, you know, it's just pressure-treated stuff that washes up and threw it in there. But for the most part, I think with the construction material, we estimated between 60 and 70 pounds of trash we got off the beach. That's good. Yeah. I mean, mostly rope, again, you know, pieces, short pieces of fishing line and stuff. [13:37] Speaker B (unidentified): That's the number one thing we find also at Broadway and Proctor the town department parts of the town highway department refilled put back filled sand on those on those steps as they were going from the cement onto the dune. It had worn down [14:00] Chair (presiding officer): some. Thank you for getting that done. [14:02] Speaker B (unidentified): And I'll thank Paul. Paul Logan Hogan wrote in a suggestion that we take some of the sand at Jeffries that had been pushed up and just left. So that was a very useful suggestion. We were able to get that moved because it came from the same spot. So the permit by rule worked. [14:23] Chair (presiding officer): That was good. Did you find the non-emergency number of people who have dog observations? I found it. It is [Speaker B (unidentified): 967-2454. So 2454.] And please call when you see it. It's much easier to figure out what's going on in the here and now than the next day or the next week. [14:41] Speaker B (unidentified): Don't bother calling if it's not the here and now, to be honest with you. So please call. When you see something, call. And that's the [14:50] Chair (presiding officer): Non-emergency number, so you're not getting in the way of someone's 911 call or whatever. [14:53] Holly: Person, okay, perfect, can I ask a question about the water quality reading? Do you know how they [14:59] Speaker F (unidentified): compare to 2025? Were they higher? Do we have more high levels? I would say it's actually low. [15:06] Speaker G (unidentified): I think we had lower. I think we did too, fewer elevated readings, but we also had much fewer big rainstorms, and that's the key. Exactly, we the, if the, if the readings are taken a day or so within either a flood tide or what people used to call a full moon tide, although for the last two years the new moon tides have been higher than the full moon tides. I don't understand that, but someone can explain it to me maybe. [15:34] Speaker B (unidentified): We're on the same side of the earth, but that's okay. All right, all right. [15:37] Speaker G (unidentified): But anyways, so I think there was actually less bacteria this year, but I think that's just because we're still in a severe drought. It's mostly washing out of the marsh. It's bacteria that dead animals, you know, bird poop, whatever, washes out on the flood [15:55] Speaker B (unidentified): time. It also naturally multiplies on the seaweed, et cetera, in the marsh. So that's a known subject. And this bacteria is, again, it's an indicator bacteria. It's not human bacteria. It itself, unless you're wickedly compromised, will not make you sick, certainly at the concentrations we have. So it's a bacteria that has been shown in California to associate with human, more dangerous bacteria. And so it's an indicator. It's called FIB, fecal indicator bacteria. And I'm going to get on my soapbox again, so let me get off it. [16:36] Speaker G (unidentified): The DNA testing continued. And that there was no results at all, no bad, let me put it that way, no bad readings. [16:46] Speaker B (unidentified): And that, again, I think reflects the amount of rain. Okay. Because that you're going to have, if it is sewage-related, you're going to have it washing with the rain. Groundwater or whatever, yeah. The groundwater, sure. [17:01] Chair (presiding officer): Cool. Okay. Public safety, we're going to turn to Chaz. Sure. [17:09] Chas Cadwell: Thank you, Pam. I don't have anything new to report, but this summer was spent really implementing the new safety arrangements in terms of speed signs and the departure of the speed bump on New Biddeford Road, and then also implementing the parking, which has an effect on speeding on the road. And the data we had as of mid-August, as I reported in August, showed that things were about the same as last year. You know, a few people speeding atrociously and most people within spitting distance of the speed limit. I have not yet got collected the data for the rest of the summer, but I can do that. The thing that we I haven't looked at carefully is what's the situation on New Goodiford Road, where our original thought had been to try to maintain the speed bump, but the town felt otherwise. And the my overall observation is that people have slowed down because of the new parking spots. It seems that people are taking more care to go around the cars, but that's because I live on the west end, and I haven't been observing New Biddeford Road quite the same. But people in general I've talked to seem to think everything was working pretty well. And then the parking is John's department, but the parking spots seem to have worked pretty much. A couple had to be moved for various technical reasons, but the compliance with the parking rules seems to be about the same as the year before, despite the new technology. [18:41] Chair (presiding officer): Okay, no, that's fine. And then I know we had another question that came into the committee about the crosswalks at Dyke Road and Kings Highway. I didn't know if you had any follow-up on that. Yeah, I did. [18:50] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, Laurie and Eric went down and looked at that and said they're absolutely correct. Those were meant to be blacked out, and that most probably did not occur because they're not blacked out. So the guys are going to do that if not tonight very soon. John's John's referring [19:12] Chas Cadwell: to a old crosswalk that's just short of the actual stop line and crosswalk at the west end of Kings Highway near the store, and so it's very confusing to drivers but also to pedestrians who were walking on the old crosswalk as people were just beginning to apply their brakes. But so it's great that it's getting fixed because it was confusing to people. [19:35] Chair (presiding officer): Can I [19:43] Speaker E (unidentified): just make one or two comments about parking and speeding, and this is purely anecdotal, but I have with regard particularly to New Biddeford Road and particularly the intersection of New Biddeford and Kings Highway. I've been told by several people who live close to that and walk along that section that they are appalled by the number of people who don't even stop for the stop sign at that intersection, just blow right through. So they've probably been run over several times when they're walking. their dog along there. I don't know what the solution to that is because again this time of year you know we don't have on-site CSOs or anything like that. And then the other thing that again people who live that I've seen in recent days particularly the other night were asking questions just in general about how well the new parking system is going and our people or the town in general pretty happy with the new parking rule places that we put in effect and particularly very happy about having residents only parking and asking if that looks like that will continue going forward and I thought based on the parking subcommittee and all the work they did that was definitely going to be something that would continue you through next year, unless you have some different inclination, John, or heard anything [21:00] Speaker B (unidentified): otherwise. I have not heard anything that would lead me to believe that we would not have the same, or certainly a similar number of resident-only parking. Okay. Also, I do need to correct myself. It's always good to go back and read your text. The blackout will be done this week, I think is what I was told. So, it'll be done before Friday we will I do not have it but that data is captured and we [21:36] Speaker F (unidentified): should have a report for you let you know it's a regular parking ticket yeah [21:46] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, but I forget the number, but it's substantial. Yeah, okay. I'm just curious. [21:52] Chair (presiding officer): Yes. Can you identify yourself, and then we'll be happy to hear from you. [21:59] Fred Stafford (public commenter): Sorry. Fred Stafford, 892 Kings Highway. On New Biddeford Road, I was just wondering if we could consider moving that sign, the speeding sign, closer to the entrance to Binnacle Hill. hill because right now you've got the sign and then you've got trees on one side an open field on the other and I think people tend to just speed up at that point because there are no homes around but like if you come in Dyke Road you've got the sign and then the homes are right there so I think that registers with people okay I'm going to slow down but the one in New Bitterford Road there's plenty of time for them to just pick it up again yep so I think it would be more beneficial if it were close to the turn going a Binnacle Hill and just before the first house on there because then you're in a congested area and maybe there would be more inclined they've slowed down maybe they stay slowed down placing it there would [22:56] Chas Cadwell: also be visible even though it's not recording things with people going outbound who have the same straightaway to speed up on if it's it's even if it's if it's closer to the middle of that straightaway people outbound might be reminded that speeding is a concern even though they even though they aren't being recorded in that direction yeah okay so you 're okay with moving it closer to the beach absolutely i wouldn't put it there to begin with i think but having it there is better than not having it that's for sure for sure okay great [23:31] Chair (presiding officer): thank you fred okay anything else on public safety no thank you okay great thank you the next item on the agenda is new business. I don't have anything, but I'm happy to. [23:48] Speaker B (unidentified): We're approaching budget season, so it would be good for us to be considering anything that we would want to put in the budget for next year. Again, last year we had the four signs, and we were able to get that accomplished. There have been, I don't know, if I just take a thought from the group, there have been some suggestions that have come into Town Hall of having handicapped mats in more than just the Edgewood entrance. The thought would be perhaps at Jeffries Way and at the dike road entrance both of those have handicapped spots but there are no mats it's a non-trivial expense it would probably be on the order of five to eight thousand dollars per entrance so something just to maybe look at and see how important that would that would be okay Chaz is that something you're willing to take a look at? [25:08] Chas Cadwell: Sorry, no, I was muted. I'm happy to. Okay, great. [25:14] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you. Is there a handicapped spot near Dyke Road? Oh, it's on the Dyke Road. [25:20] Speaker E (unidentified): It's the last spot. Yeah, that's right. I forgot. And I would only love to see more handicapped mats. I mean, I really do try to avoid the going up and down. I remember when the woman who addressed that issue with the last one she kind of said gently well maybe it's due to my having short legs and I said to her later you know long legs have just as much trouble getting down that extra step so I as I age I would love to see some more I always try and go out on Edgewood so it would be lovely to have some other not only that are flat don't end up all that but have a more stable footing going out [25:59] Speaker B (unidentified): yeah if you're going out with a cane or something that's where does it have to be a wheelchair. Having that stability is... Even without a cane, [26:08] Speaker E (unidentified): tell me, at a certain point. [26:10] Chair (presiding officer): Perfect. No, that's a good point. Thank you. Did you have something else? [26:15] Speaker G (unidentified): It's recurring every year. The water testing costs money, so we have to make sure we request that. Is there a charge for the beach profiling? I can't remember. No. [26:27] Chair (presiding officer): That's all volunteer? Yeah, and then I guess the only other thing is the cleanup [26:31] Speaker G (unidentified): up expenses. Oh, that's right. That's right. I forgot the dumpster and stuff like that. And steak and twine. I have steaks left. [26:42] Chair (presiding officer): So do you want us to put that number together for November? And plover. [26:46] Speaker B (unidentified): The plover, too. Well, that's right. The plover monitor or volunteer coordinator. Yeah, it would be good if you would please, if we need to as a committee, pull that together and let me carry it [26:58] Chair (presiding officer): to Lori. Okay, we can certainly do that. Okay, any other new business? Okay, a motion to adjourn. [27:11] Speaker E (unidentified): Wait a minute, next meeting is October and November 16. Thank you, and I will move that we adjourn. Okay, is there a second? All those in favor? [27:23] Chair (presiding officer): You okay? Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you for coming, participating. We appreciate it. Thanks.