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Mystery signs at Fort Taber beach's violate federal and state laws |
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Written by Dave Gould
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Tuesday, 24 April 2007 |
 NEW BEDFORD, MA - Thousands of people every year enjoy Fort Taber park for a variety of reasons. Every year the crowds get bigger and the events more interesting and numerous. Personally, our family enjoys the public BBQ pits that have easy access to the relatively clean waters of New Bedford's outer harbor for swimming and quahoggin'. Rodney French Boulevard, both east and west is often traveled simply because the view. A great deal of the distance is really quite lovely, sans a few factories and dilapidated buildings in Hazelwood Park. Few do not turn into Fort Taber for a parking lot tour of this beautiful public resource. However, recently, someone installed signs on the beach restricting the publics access during the week.
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The right of the public under Chapter 91 laws to have access to the waters, beaches and tideland of Massachusetts cannot be infringed, especially in a state park. But this is just what has happened. Mysteriously, several signs have surfaced, buried in concrete that restrict the publics access in favor of the Community Boating program and the Camp Kennedy program during the week. Like dandelion seeds blowing on the air these signs have sprung up and no one in government seems to how or why.
 When notified of these signs, Sue Porter of the conservation commission immediately stated that she know nothing of them and that if they were there, they would be illegal. The folks at the HDC knew nothing of them either. “We are only interested in what's in the water”, replied one HDC employee. Ken Blanchard of the DPF, the guy under who signs for the city are made, also claimed to know nothing. A message to the mayor's office went unanswered, but he stated on Ken Pitttman's WBSM radio show that some kind of a compromise between boaters rights and swimmers rights could be reached. Since Fort Taber is part of the Park department, we went over to Chic Rose who recently took over the reins of the department that manages recreation and parks. She very defensively denied any knowledge of the signs, but corrected us when we mistook Thru to mean Thursday. Artie Johnson's Laugh-In character comes to mind; “Verrrry Interesting”. Lastly we checked with the traffic division since they put up a great deal of signage. Same response. They knew nothing either.
At this point I was beginning to think all of New Bedford's employees were related to Schultz on Hogan's Hero's. “Nothing... I know NOTHING! It's amazing. Four large signs pop up on three public beaches in New Bedford and every department that could either authorize or install such signs are completely in the dark as to how they got there. Hmmm
With no one in the government left to ask, I called Peter Durant at Community Boating. He too says that he was just as surprised as I was. He said, “Those signs are a chapter 91 violation, we didn't put them in”. Scratching my head I thanked him and though of yet another old TV series. GOMER PILE; SURPISE SURPRISE SURPRISE!
Having confirmed that no one in government was willing to take credit for violating a state and federal law, we set out to undo the damage. We called the Environmental police, who didn't believe us until he went and looked for himself. “You can't do that”. We called and emailed pictures to the DEP. Again, You can't do that”. Mitch Ziencina of the DEP informed us this morning that he has sent a letter to Mayor Lang to order the mysterious sign installer to uninstall these signs and restore public access to the beach.
In my humble opinion Mayor Lang has done nothing to stem the nonsense we all so disliked under the Kalisz administration. The message that is being missed by the Mayor and his department heads is that they are being watched and the people are not going to allow this nonsense to continue.Only registered users can write comments.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 24 April 2007 )
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