Staff Writer 

 South Portland City Councilor Jim Hughes, the only remaining member of the council who sat on the Willard Beach Task force last year, said he couldn’t recall the last time a request to add a question to a ballot was submitted to the city clerks office.

“We’ve added bond questions before,” he said. “But haven’t seen anything like [Crosby’s request].”

The request Hughes was referring to was made by resident Gary Crosby – another former member of the task force who partnered with Willard Beach property owner Dan Labrie and resident John Gillick last October to form the Save Willard Beach Group. The request was submitted on Christmas Eve.

“Together we will win this,” Crosby wrote in a Dec. 27 email. “At the end we will have our beach back.”

Due to the holiday, City Clerk Sue Mooney said city legal counsel wasn’t able to review the language of the proposed ballot question until this past Monday, after which she said she would provide Crosby with a qualified petition to circulate in the community. The proposed referendum question states: “No person owning or in custody or control of any dog shall permit such dog to enter upon Willard Beach between the months of May through September, inclusive except between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. April 15 and October 15.  Dogs are allowed on Willard Beach between October 16 and April 14 during park hours if on leash and under owner’s control.”

Mooney said 930 residents would have to sign the petition for it to be accepted by the clerk’s office, and possibly included on the November ballot.

 “Providing he has that many signatures, we’ll go through and verify all the names before it is submitted to the [city] council,” Mooney said.

Hughes said he did not expect the ballot question request or a completed petition to affect the ongoing work of the council, which he said was currently in the process of “basically redoing” research previously completed by the Willard Beach Task Force.

“We’re talking about enforcement, possibly a small change in hours,” Hughes said. “We might as well go forward, we’ve done all the work. And we would also have a summer’s worth of experience with whatever we decide before the November referendum.”

Mooney said once the council receives a completed petition, they may either agree to add it to a ballot or vote on it themselves, possibly eliminating the need for it to be presented to voters. If approved either by the council or voters, dogs would only be allowed on Willard beach between Oct. 16 and April 14. 

If passed by either the council or voters, dogs would be allowed less time on the beach than they would have if the council’s vote concerning a proposal by councilor Maxine Beecher had not been deemed invalid due to a scheduling conflict with the city clerk’s office last year. The invalidated vote would have changed the summer hours dogs are allowed from mornings between 6 and 9 a.m. to evening from 6 to 9 p.m. The proposed change could also be more restrictive to dogs than the final recommendations of the Willard Beach Task force, which, although they include stipulations for enforcement, changes “voice command” language and would restrict dogs from walking above the high water mark, do not include any change in allowable hours.

Assistant City Manager and former Willard Beach Task Force facilitator Erik Carson said the group had previously discussed the possibility of a citywide referendum to satiate the tensions between Willard beach users and property owners.

“If the task force and the council couldn’t come up with something, we talked about a referendum,” he said. “It was only in so much as to keep things moving.”

According to current South Portland ordinance, dogs are not allowed on Willard Beach from May to September except between the hours of 6 and 9 a.m. Carson said the city council was expected to continue their workshops on the issue on Monday.