Editor:
    Tourist bus parking at the Trolley Museum has synergy and business-to-business collaboration, it was said.
    On Thursday, Oct. 18, at 1:15 p.m., the entrance to the museum had a barrier across it. The sign said, “closed.” The sign included the telephone number, 967-2800 for information. A recorded message said they were closed Monday through Friday between Columbus Day (as early as Oct. 8 in some years) and Oct. 28, when they close for the winter. Isn’t that the “leaf peeper” season when senior citizens are supposed to inundate Dock Square? Didn’t we know this?
    On six earlier occasions, on separate days, the new $10,700 taxpayer-funded asphalt pavement showed very little sign of bus tire tracks. (The buses cross over dusty gravel to get to the new black asphalt). Where were the buses?
    On Oct. 18, one bus was parked outside the gate, sent there from Cross Street, to be there for three hours in the hot sun with engines shut down. The inside of the bus was beginning to heat up and the odor of the holding tanks was starting to permeate the bus. This, according to the driver, is why buses cruise – to keep the air conditioning and ventilation on. He also mentioned that a second bus had been sent there but for lack of room drove off . . . to where? (Again, on Monday, Oct. 22, at 11:05 a.m., the gate was closed, one bus parked outside the gates). At 1:15 p.m., the gate closed, one empty bus was cruising down Maine Street.
    On Oct. 18, there were  four buses and three cars parking in the lot on 30 North Street. Weren’t buses supposed to be prohibited from doing this? Maybe because the gate at the museum was closed.
    On the same day, two empty buses cruised down Pearl Street. Wasn’t this supposed to be discouraged?
    Still on the same day, one bus was loading at Cross Street, one was unloading.
    At the Kennebunk Lower Village parking lot, there were five buses parked and one was unloading. Just about all of the unloading passengers headed directly across the bridge to Dock Square. There were very few people in the opposite direction all the way to the traffic lights at Cooper’s Corner, contrary to what is popularly alleged.
    Now, all of this may have an anomaly and just a snapshot in time, but it is factual.
    The Kennebunkport voters supported, with approximately 80 percent ayes, the Trolley Museum article, the only article on the parking issue because of some administrative goof. What the voters were not told is that the Trolley Museum was not the best alternative because nobody had taken the time to evaluate all of the alternative locations prior to preparing the article, or if it was done, it was not made public. This is not a criticism of the Trolley Museum. Even the town-owned Beachwood Drive property was ruled out in the past because of a perceived line of sight problem, when in fact, an alternate return route easily solves this problem.
There are nine possible bus parking alternative locations. These have now been evaluated, not just by the two considerations in the paragraph above, but by more than 20 criteria. The evaluation looked at what is most important to the Dock Square merchants and separately to the Kennebunkport citizens, then the two were combined for each of the nine locations.
    The final results on a scale of zero to 1,400 are: the two Kennebunk Lower Village alternatives ranked the highest at 1,350 and 1,155 points; two School Street alternatives were the worst at 110 and 125 points; the Trolley Museum earned 650 points; two Beachwood Avenue alternatives and 30 North Street were close in the 795 to 850 range. (Yes, there are some indeterminate error in the ratings but unless intentionally skewed, the revised results would not change substantially).
    The merchants need to be guaranteed a location and forever (in perpetuity). Only the Beachwood Avenue location can do this (without taking away automobile parking at 30 North Street). The tourist bus parking needs to be taken out of politics and put into free enterprise . . . with merchants controlling their own destiny.
    The best alternative is combining the highest ranking Lower Village alternative(s) with the in-perpetuity guarantee of the Beachwood property through a lease between the Lower Village area and the town, if the Lower Village were to consider this.
    Such a lease must have provisions favorable to: the merchants (perpetuity); the lessee (discretionary use); the town citizenry; the neighborhood and the bus drivers. Surprisingly, it takes very little to accomplish this. Try it! This gets Kennebunkport out of tourist bus parking, including the elimination of the Cross Street operation. (If for any reason in the future the Lower Village parking becomes unavailable, the lease can provide for reimplementation of the Cross Street operation).
    If we don’t do this now and in the meantime options disappear, there will be no tourist bus parking, merchants will become affected along with Dock Square landlords and what becomes of Dock Square?
    Now is the time to explore this further, not in the heat of preparation of articles for town meeting! Probably this should be done by the public safety committee, with the current board of selectmen representative recused due to a conflict of interest (RE: code of ethics).
    Let’s get it right this time!
John L. Haggerty
Kennebunkport