Situation: In years past, there was a rash of night parties at the beaches where there was purported to be underage drinking and fires on the beach. There was a sizable amount of trash, beer cans and bottles left on the beach and thrown into the dunes. At times there were groups on the dock where there was reported vandalism to the dock and the small boats.

For the past number of years Seascape Association has debated the need for a night security patrol during the summer months. The Association looked into increasing police presence at night with limited success. We looked into hiring an off-duty police officer but rejected that idea, not wanting to have neighborhood youth arrested. We agreed upon hiring a civilian and started the night patrols with a neighborhood person. The role was to patrol two nights a week on the weekends from 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM. This would be done for the 10 weeks of the summer season from Memorial Day to Labor Day. On the holiday weekends we increased the patrols to three nights a weekend. These patrols made a good impact on reducing the overnight activity.

For the past few years we have hired an outside person to do the night patrols. At one point we increased the weekly patrols to three, with one patrol on a random week night. These efforts have continued to have good results to where the patrol logs have shown that there is, on many nights, nothing to report. The beaches remain mostly clean of trach and very little fires have been reported. Occasionally there has been some reports of activity after the patrols.

We currently pay the night patrol person $50.00 per hour. The bill for the 2018 season was $3,900.00, ($50.00 X 39 nights X 2 Hours per night)

Board Meeting: A meeting of the Seascape Association board was held on Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 1:00 pm to discuss security at the Seascape beaches and the night security. The members present were Tim Gallagher, John Honey and Ellen Clark at Tim’s home.  The members who participated by conference call were John Mannix, John Biegel, and Russ Hazelton.  Tim called the meeting to order after confirming a quorum of six members.

The Board recommends the following for the 2019 beach season:
 

• The board recommends to change the night security from three nights per week to two nights per week, weekends only. To start the summer season off, security will be provided for at least three nights on the weeks of Memorial Day and July 4th.  The change to two weekend nights only, will be monitored. If there is unauthorized use or trespassing on the beaches during the weeknights, the Board will adjusts the schedule back to three nights.

• We anticipate the costs will be $2,000.00, ($50.00 per hour X 22 nights X 2 hours per night). This will result in a savings of $1,700.00