Editor:
    My family has been a seasonal neighbor of the Tides Inn by the Sea in Goose Rocks for 22 years.  Before the purchase of our cottage we were frequent guests of the inn.  We have always loved the charming laid back atmosphere and of course the proximity to what is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
    For the most part the inn has been a tolerable and tolerant neighbor, certainly the owners are lovely people. But having an inn next door has its down side. Sometimes the visible trash dumpster would fume with seafood waste and flies.  Sometimes the bar was rowdy until the wee hours of the morning and intoxicated patrons would leave speaking loudly not realizing how their voices carried in our close knit neighborhood.  During busy weekends, many patrons parked where they could,  even  on the wrong side of the road or in our parking place.  Huge 10 wheelers deliver everyday, including Sunday,  with  running  engines filling the air with  a toxic diesel smell. The windows of our home would rattle as they rumbled through our  residential seaside community of  summer cottages.  Frequently we would witness a near miss by the trucks and cars trying to make U turns to depart from the inn. Many close calls of pedestrians headed toward the beach, chair in hand or a youngster on a bike. Cooks and wait staff that think when leaving at 1 a.m. it is a good idea to turn on the radio full blast.  But through it all we knew what we were getting when we moved in.  And over the years things worked themselves out to a very manageable coexistence.
    Now with a contract zone our neighbor wants to place a permanent toilet in our front yard.  Don’t mistake Kennebunkport’s “hospitality facility “ for anything else but what it is – a public toilet.  Would anyone reading this want a permanent public toilet in their front yard?  
    We bought our house knowing the previously mentioned imperfections of it’s location but now as my neighbor is allowed to reap  all the benefits of a condo conversion worth millions of dollars she will leave me and my fellow cottage owners with her legacy of a public toilet in our front yards.     
    The problem is she and the town just don’t get the injustice of it.  If there are to be toilets should they not be placed in front of the inn near to the beach? The prospective buyers of the condos will know what they are purchasing before they buy as we did,  this seems fair and equitable.  But I am sure this will deflate the value of the condos.
    Additionally over these years we have observed the beach in front of the Tides Inn. In the past few years as the season begins in June the beach is a pristine stretch of white sand with an array of naturally colored seaweed and shells, but by August it has turned into a trash pit from the abuse of some of our visitors.  This is not fecal matter that I am seeing but a vista that has been insulted by the neon colors of broken plastic toys, water and soda bottles, Wal-Mart bags, cans, cigarettes and cigar butts, abandoned beach balls, broken beach chairs, umbrellas, orange peels, used diapers and charred wood pieces from the fires  of the night before. Craters are left by ambitious sand digging children and adults for unsuspecting evening walkers.
    The town refuses to enforce any of its current rules regarding beach usage.  Kennebunkport provides no service for daily maintenance of the beach or to protect it from these daily visitors. The town’s idea of maintenance is adding two trash barrels at each entrance and that was only after one of the beach owners complained about trash left. And it is the transient visitors that are leaving this mess as you will not see a resident of Goose Rocks leave such detritus on our lovely patch  of heaven.  With this area designated as “public” won’t the tour buses from town start to arrive with more day tourists to greatly increase usage of this small patch with no active maintenance in the works.  So now with this proposed contract, the town wants permanent rights to the beach with no plan on how to keep it fit and clean.  No plan to limit its usage.  No plan because why would you put a public toilet in a residential neighborhood?
    This Contract is a rushed, thoughtless proposal because a few of the select people feel one must have a toilet every two blocks on the beach.  One would think that if you need toilets when you go to the beach you should sit near where they are currently in existence, the general store and the pumping station.  Should we put a public toilet in front of President George H. Bush’s house?  Tourists just might need to “go” when they are viewing his home.   
    We have public toilets, we have beach access,  what are we really getting from this contract?  Nothing that we don’t already have. But the owners of the Tides will be getting plenty from  the town if this contract is approved.  And I wonder why there are no complaints when members of the town’s various governing boards regularly park in the Tides parking lot to go to the beach?
Vote No On Question 6!

John and Jeannette Parker
Kennebunkport