This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.

Give Us Back our Beach Decals

Keep it simple. Madison’s beaches are not state parks! Hard-working beach staff will now be overwhelmed; instead of tending to safety of patrons and cleanliness of beach and park grounds, now they will have a new task of chasing out-of-town vehicles around the beach parking lot, possibly leading to confrontations. Great job!

Why put our young staff members through this? How many more staff members will we need to hire? Speaking of bringing in revenue, Madison beach is for taxpaying Madison residents first and foremost as a peaceful and quiet place to go. The town should give us back our beach decals and take this unnecessary burden off our beach staff, our residents, our police officers, fire department, and EMS service that already suffers budget shortfalls.

We suggest visitors pay at the gate via credit cards only. For out of town vehicles, the cost should be $35 Monday through Thursday and $50 Friday to Sunday. There’s no need for online or hourly confusion. Any more revenue in this case will have to go to more restrooms, showers, and maintaining park grounds. We can hire more police and EMS.

We encourage the Beach & Recreation Commission and Board of Selectmen to keep it simple. Finally, we have trust in our beach staff to ensure all Madison residence vehicles have decals and all out-of-town vehicles pay at the gate.

Joe and Donna Oyola

Madison