A 7-month old non-resident fee is $5.00 - Who's going to be checking IDs?

Does not address baseball games. Lots of people come to see the games where will they park? As the bathrooms are on the beach how will this be handled? If its a sticker program who is going to check if they have one on the car? Who is going to hold and collect the money? figure minimum of 2 people are required maybe 3. Who will enforce the "sticker area" will tickets be given out? Will you get towed?The town has already had one hearing on Varney and we should wait to see what residents in the area and across town come up with. the police detail on the site has reduced issue to almost zero and adding cameras would be able to monitor the site after hours. This is a busy park and does need monitoring but will this address the situation or just create more issues. I think our best course would be to have an Officer there (or Aux Officer) and look at all the issues and come up with a complete plan that addresses Base Ball,Tennis,Basketball,Playground, open Space, Parking, The boat house, Water use, Abuters land, dumping. if I had a sticker on my truck and a baseball game was on with out of town visitors and they parked without a sticker should they be towed? I would not have an issue paying in $10 or even $50 (a more reasonable fee for the cost) but if I did I would expect improved services. This should have also contained an exemption for public events like Winterfest.

I would not pay anything unless the town promises to re-build that absolutely disgusting bathroom.

And yes, we need a lifeguard, too of course.

So Heart Pond will be open to non residents. Mark my words, there will be scarce parking as bike trail riders park there too. Why not beach passes there too?

Heart Pond was acquired with CPC funds so it is very different than Varney. If does not get the same amount of people as the park is much smaller and does not offer a playground, basket ball or tennis of a large green space or baseball games . The parking lot is very large and if it gets full Bike riders can (and do) park at Red Wing, Byam and Sunny Meadow Farm. If needed Sunny Meadow has a large open field that could be used for event parking for a large trail ride.The lot at Heart pond still has about 25% we do not use (we don't cut the grass there). I don;t see a need to change anything as Jeff and Barb Aposolakes do a amazing job.

Non-resident fees ? Absolutely ridiculous. Where are the Chelmsford libertarians on this government intrusion? We use other town's facilities without paying, don't we. Follow this to its logical conclusion and every town's resources and facilities would be restricted to its own residents. Not too smart.

I think some people are missing the point. The reason the fee is suggested is a way to keep out troublemakers...it has nothing to do with "government intrusion". If anything, it's about keeping the park safe!!

I think this is a good idea, given all the problems the town has been having keeping "undesirables" out of the park. There has been a lot of violence recently in the park due to gangs and such hanging out there.

As I understand it (I spoke to the park groundskeeper last year), the town used to be able to enforce the "residents only" rule without a fee but a few years ago the town accepted state funds to fix a problem with the dam on the lake and after that point we were no longer allowed to call it a "private town park". Therefore the police haven't been able to make people leave who are not residents.

The way to get around this is to impose a fee for the park. Allowing residents to purchase a really low cost sticker, and alternatively offering non residents a pay for use access, will allow better inforcement to keep troublemakers out of the park.

Shari, here is a link to the original deed and to the Chapter 45.

http://chelmsford.patch.com/articles/town-looks-to-step-up-security-at-varney-park

look at both the PDF's and it will give you the original history and how it was deed to the town and a link to the sate chapter they talk about.

Assumption is that it is non-residents only causing problems.

Sounds like snobbery to me