Meetings Ahead
Most meetings in Eastham are in-person, typically with an online-attendance option. Go to eastham-ma.gov and click on the meeting you are interested in for details. All meetings are at Town Hall unless otherwise indicated.
Monday, Aug. 14
- Climate Action Committee, 5 p.m., Small Meeting Room
Tuesday, Aug. 15
- Taxation Aid Committee, 11 a.m., Small Meeting Room
Wednesday, Aug. 16
- Planning Board, 5 p.m., Earle Mountain Meeting Room
Conversation Starter
Select Board and Nauset Beach
The select board will meet in a closed session to discuss next steps in the dispute with the National Park Service over Nauset Light Beach parking.
Last Tuesday, the select board and Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe sent a letter to National Seashore Supt. Brian Carlstrom stating that Eastham residents should maintain full, free access to the parking lot at Nauset Light Beach and alleging that the Park Service was not honoring terms of a 2022 agreement and a 1965 deed by denying access to its lots. The letter gave Carlstrom one week to resolve the situation.
The 1965 deed conveyed Nauset Light to the Park Service along with Coast Guard Beach on condition that town residents reserve “the right to use the beach and adjacent waters for swimming, the adjacent parking area, and without charge.” The 2022 agreement segregates the parking area into a Park Service lot and an Eastham taxpayers lot and says the Park Service will honor Eastham taxpayer stickers and permit them to park “anywhere in NPS-managed lots.”
According to Beebe, Carlstrom had an “immediate” response promising he would “take a look at it, talk to his staff and get back to me.” Carlstrom told the Cape Cod Times last Wednesday that new staff members had been confused by the 2022 agreement.
Neither Carlstrom nor Deputy Supt. Leslie Reynolds responded to requests for comment before press time.
Beebe said Monday that she had solicited an opinion from the town counsel. The attorney suggested that though the town was “not tied” to the 2022 agreement, the terms of the deed still had to be honored, including Eastham residents’ right to “free access and free parking,” Beebe said.
“He has basically opined that the deed is not ambiguous at all, and in no way do the small agreements take away from our rights under that deed,” she told the board. “He sees it as a very black-and-white issue that should be enforced.”
Beebe said in a follow-up text message to the Independent that her assistant would schedule the executive session “as soon as possible.” —Elias Schisgall
