By Stowell P. Watters
Staff writer
    A Dec. 15 Kennebunkport Board of Selectmen’s meeting brought extensive discussion and public comment concerning the future of bathrooms at Goose Rocks Beach. Board members and residents alike voiced differing opinions on both the location and future existence of a restroom as well as the issue of a contract zone that is needed to build the facility.
    “The biggest challenge we have is finding a piece of property to actually put the facility,” said chairman Mat Lanigan.  “We need both a long term and a short term solution.”    
    For the past three summers Goose Rocks Beach resident Bill Leffler and his family have permitted beach goers to use a portable toilet on his land, 50 feet from his house. Despite the location of the portable toilet, Leffler said he experienced no inconvenience from the facility itself or the people who used it. On average, Leffler estimated 150 people used the portable toilet daily during the summer, a reason he cited as the need for a more permanent facility.
    Although portable toilets can be put on Goose Rock’s Beach without a zone change, a permanent facility, such as the one that would have been gifted to the town as a part of Marie Henriksen’s Tides Inn contract zone, would require the creation of a contract zone ordinance that would have to be approved by voters. Henriksen’s Tides Inn contract zone failed by a margin of 137 votes; this, Leffler speculated, was due to an extensive public relations effort on the side of the opposition of the contract zone.
    “The town was hoodwinked, the town was duped. The flyer, the advertisements put in the paper, the scare tactics, which were made by an unidentified person, had nothing to do with what these people were really talking about: bathrooms at Goose Rocks Beach,” Leffler said, as he called the entire issue of contract zoning a farce. “What was proposed was a permanent restroom that would be properly designed and connected to the sewer and water lines.”
    Leffler referenced published letters in which residents called the people who used Goose Rocks Beach in the summer “slobs.” He added that he and Selectman Allen Daggett clean up the beach every fall and spring with a local rotary club and find very little trash. Daggett concurred.
    Leffler also speculated the same people who voted down the contract zone would sue if the town attempted to implement permanent facilities at Goose Rocks Beach. He recommended, in just the town punish those who voted against the contract zone by discontinuing public parking along Kings Highway at Goose Rocks Beach.
    Goose Rocks Beach resident Alex Lachiatto disagreed with Leffler as he cited numerous public hearings in which the town discussed the contract zoning issue as it pertained to Henriksen’s inn and the proposed restroom as well as broadcasts of those meetings on local television.
    “This town wasn’t hoodwinked, there are a lot of intelligent people here,” Lachiatto said.
    He also addressed the ad in a local newspaper, which Leffler called “misleading,” and said it accurately depicted “12 variances being decimated… the people knew what they wanted, we weren’t yelling fire in a crowded theater.”
    Town Manager Larry Mead said Kennebunkport is still interested in the concept of expanding the Goose Rocks General Store with the inclusion of a public restroom facility. Lachiatto supported this idea during the meeting as he called it “the logical place,” and said “contract zoning was brought about to provide a bathroom at that store.”
    Selectman Kristi Bryant spoke in favor of the contract zone issue and corrected Lachiatto.
    “I felt the letters were very confusing and misleading and caused many people to rethink their decisions. I think the Tides Inn proposal was really our town’s best choice. Contract zoning was proposed to provide a bathroom at Goose Rocks, not the store specifically,” Bryant said.
    Mead said although the Sotir family, who owns the general store, are willing to provide portable toilets they are not ready to consider a contract zone until 2009. This summer, Mead said, beach goers will have to use portable toilets.       
To contact Stowell P. Watters, call 282-4337 ext. 219 or email news@kennebunkpost.com.