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Old 11-19-2019, 12:38 PM   #51
bilproject
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Default Who is to Blame for the lack of waterfront facilities in Meredith?

This thread has taken a right turn from where it started which was a boat slip rental being cancelled. That being said, I would like to respond to the parking situation at Lovejoy Sands since I have spent most of the last year working on the issue for the Meredith Island Association.
First, the problem of parking at this location rests squarely on the shoulders of the Town of Meredith. No facilities that serve the islands have been improved over the last 35 years (new dock at Cattle Landing was a step backward). In the same time the town docks and parking were expanded and improved, a new police station built, and new community center built, now a new 7 million dollar public works building, and a renovation of the library soon to come. All funded by waterfront properties that are mostly seasonal and contribute about 40% of the Meredith tax revenue while causing almost no expenses to the town. I would submit that Meredith would look a lot different if were not for taxes collected from non-residents. Yet when it comes to improving waterfront facilities other than the town docks they cry poverty. A bit of a thumb in the eye don't you think. The town's fire boat has been out of service since early July due to a blown motor and the town could not find the money to repair it. They did however, find 35K to buy a used Parker that is called the Police boat but is primarily used to ferry the tax assessor and code enforcement office to the islands. You can see where the priorities are.
Second, the town facilities are public. This means that everyone including a tourist from Greenland has the right to use them on a first come first served basis. Thirty five years ago many families only owned one car and the typical lake boat was 20 feet or less long. Today we are more than likely to have one car for each driver in the family and we have 26' pontoons with an 8'4" beam. None of the current facilities were designed to handle todays situation.
Third, we can identify areas that we as users can possibly make the situation better until permanent solutions are found. AMC has done a good job at mitigating their contribution to the problem by purchasing and improving a piece of land into a parking facility for their members. They put into their rental packets instructions to park in their lot if space is available. I don't know if they canvas their guests to see if they followed the instructions, but if not that is possibly something they could do. We island residents who have slip parking could also have guests park in one of the downtown lots and pick them up there by car when we have large numbers of guests say on the 4th of July. We can also encourage our guest to bring the minimum number of vehicles to the lake particularly on the weekends.
The Meredith Island Association has identified vacant land the town could pursue that would increase available parking by about 3.5 acres. Is it as close to the dock as the current parking? No but it would make a great trailer and truck lot with the current trailer lot becoming car parking only. We have also discussed a resident permit parking only for cattle landing with possible future application to Lovejoy Sands if successful. Many spots are now taken up by Gilford property owners on Mark and Mink Islands. The association also supports the town moving forward with the engineer's recommendations on the parking lot and dock at Cattle Landing and the Docks at Lovejoy Sands. Rather than support an 8.5 million dollar parking garage we have encouraged them to pursue additional surface parking. When the parking garage and town dock niceties are removed from the engineer's proposals the price tag comes down to under 3 million. While this is a lot of money, had the town treated island taxpayers equally with residents it would have only cost $85,000 per year over the last 35 years. That's less than 10% of the tax dollars the town receives from unbridged island properties each year, and island residents are not the only ones using the facilities. Remember they are public.
To conclude, we need blame only one entity for the current situation and that entity is the Town of Meredith. So write the town manager and selectmen and express your anger over the current situation and ask them what they intend to do. They have a plan before them. If they were to support it with as much conviction as they did the police station, community center and public works building I am sure the town's residents would pass budgets to fund the improvements.
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