Livermore board OKs cameras at town beaches

LIVERMORE — Selectpersons agreed Monday night to install surveillance cameras at town beaches on Round Pond and Brettuns Pond to address littering and loitering issues.

Administrative Assistant Amy Byron said Game Warden Harry Wiegman has stepped up patrols in the area and installed a camera at the boat launch on Brettuns Pond. He’s working on getting more cameras, she said.

Selectperson Tom Gould offered the use of several game cameras.

“The hard thing is catching people in the act,” Byron said.

The cameras are in response to complaints last month of a dead cat, bags of human feces, dirty diapers and used needles left at the beaches, and vandalism to picnic tables. Selectmen have considered closing the beaches.

The cameras will be housed in locked, wooden boxes.

Selectperson Tom Gould suggested town maintenance worker Dan Boothby spend an hour per week reviewing the videotapes.

Byron was asked to research the cost of signs informing people of the cameras.

Selectperson Ben Guild said needles found at the beaches were either from diabetics or drug use. Because the latter probably doesn’t happen during the day, he suggested creating an ordinance to close the beaches at night.

Gould said that would require a vote of the townspeople. He recommended reviewing how other options work first.

Resident Ashley Lakin suggested sending a notice to townspeople about the situation at the beaches.

“I’ve been picking up at The Pines for years. People don’t seem to have heard the discussion. I don’t think it is Livermore people leaving the stuff there,” he said.

In other business Monday, Selectperson Ben Guild, a member of the Fire Department, said he obtained approval from Chief Donald Castonguay to make the department’s conference room available to the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office and Maine State Police.

“If we have a facility they could use, we might see them more. It doesn’t cost us or them anything. It might help,” Guild said.

pharnden@sunmediagroup.net