The Parks & Recre­ation Com­mis­sion at its 80-minute meet­ing Thurs­day evening vot­ed 4–0 to endorse a cap­i­tal grant pro­pos­al to fund man­u­al gates at Sandy Beach in order to increase secu­ri­ty there.

Com­mis­sion­er Cyn­thia Esthimer has been serv­ing as a mem­ber of an ad hoc com­mit­tee that pre­vi­ous­ly ana­lyzed the beach for safe­ty con­cerns regard­ing park­ing and the con­di­tion of the dock. The biggest issue over the past cou­ple of sum­mers has been the lack of secu­ri­ty gates, she noted.

The com­mit­tee had been delib­er­at­ing over whether elec­tric or man­u­al gates would be prefer­able, Esthimer said. She men­tioned a “$25,000 oppor­tu­ni­ty put for­ward by the town man­ag­er” where res­i­dents or groups could apply for fund­ing for a project “that falls in the align­ment and goals of the town vision.” The appli­ca­tion, she not­ed, is due by Jan. 30.

Gates are need­ed at the entrance and exit to Sandy Beach’s park­ing lots because “we have quite a cir­cus in the sum­mer,” Esthimer said.

Parks & Recre­ation Direc­tor Jay Guelfi said he observed peo­ple last sum­mer drop­ping peo­ple off at the entrance. They would then be loi­ter­ing around the gate and wait­ing until the atten­dant was occu­pied and “just kind of shuf­fle in.”

The ini­tial option pro­posed was for elec­tron­ic gates with a token or sim­i­lar sys­tem, but this idea has been put aside for now, Esthimer explained. This would allow the com­mit­tee time to draft a pro­pos­al for fund­ing from the Com­mu­ni­ty Preser­va­tion Com­mit­tee that would not only incor­po­rate these gates but also include ren­o­va­tions to the park­ing lot.

Guelfi explained that a CPC request would have to go before Town Meet­ing in 2024 if approved. The gate sys­tem may not be able to be imple­ment­ed by that Memo­r­i­al Day because there is only a two-week win­dow between Town Meet­ing and the hol­i­day. The park­ing lot most like­ly would need to be regrad­ed and resur­faced after an engi­neer­ing study, he noted.

Anoth­er idea Esthimer sug­gest­ed doing now is request­ing $5,000 for two 20-foot-long man­u­al-lift gates. They could either be oper­at­ed by park­ing lot atten­dants or raised and low­ered by beachgoers.

Sabine St. Pierre of the Lake Maspenock Preser­va­tion Asso­ci­a­tion told the com­mis­sion that the biggest con­cern is at the exit. While atten­dants have been occu­pied sell­ing and ver­i­fy­ing the beach park­ing pass­es, peo­ple have been park­ing down the street and sneak­ing into the exit area, she explained.

“A lot of peo­ple are bypass­ing hav­ing to pay,” she said, not­ing that some peo­ple are non-res­i­dents at the res­i­dent-only beach.

St. Pierre said an elec­tron­ic gate would make sense at the exit because no one would have to man it.

“At least it’s deter­ring all this traf­fic from com­ing in,” she said. “I think the more offi­cial we start look­ing down there, the more we can deter it.”

Com­mis­sion chair Dan Ter­ry not­ed that gate mon­i­tors would be need­ed pri­mar­i­ly on week­ends and hol­i­days. Guelfi explained that a new posi­tion that had not been bud­get­ed for this year would have to be cre­at­ed. The cost would be about $1,920 for the summer.

“We need to get incre­men­tal improve­ments down there,” Ter­ry said.

Com­mis­sion­er Amy O’Donnell said “the best route now” would be a man­u­al sys­tem for $5,000. This would allow the depart­ment and com­mis­sion time to bet­ter ana­lyze what would be the most effec­tive system.

St. Pierre vol­un­teered to sub­mit to the request to the Town Hall, not­ing that she would be sub­mit­ting it as a res­i­dent. She also is an LMPA offi­cer and a mem­ber of the ad hoc com­mit­tee. The com­mit­tee vot­ed to endorse St. Pierre’s request 4–0.

Said Ter­ry: “It’s some­where between a baby step and a big­ger step.”