By BERNARD ROY, Special to the Gazette
I understand there is a moratorium on UNE initiated by the mayor and city council. UNE is an institution that is a huge plus for Biddeford. They hire professionals as professors, adjunct professors and administrators who live in our community. More importantly, UNE educates young people from Maine who aspire to better themselves and get good paying jobs.
In addition, UNE provides jobs for residents from Biddeford and surrounding areas to maintain the building, grounds and services. UNE is not a burden to residents of Biddeford.
The Portland Press Herald had an article (Biddeford Committee plans public hearing, Feb. 24, 2026) about the moratorium, which revealed the hidden agenda for this moratorium.
It appears the Hills Beach residents want to constrain development and growth of UNE. They are more interested in keeping people out and the coastline to themselves for nothing more than selfish reasons.
Biddeford has failed to provide public parking at every beach in Biddeford for all the residents. When I drive through Biddeford Pool these days, I noticed all the places I had parked to go scuba diving when I was in high school are now blocked or have no parking signs, essentially keeping city residents out.
If you drive to Goose Rocks Beach, you are welcomed with a sign that says, “welcome to Goose Rocks Beach, no parking on any street any time”. When you drive through, you can see a beautiful beach near the road.
Most of the time there are very few people on the beach. But there is no public parking anywhere. Instead, you find a pseudo security guard following you to make sure you leave. He essentially chases you out.
My sister stopped there last year to show her daughter the beach and was rewarded very quickly with a parking ticket. I thought, here I am a resident of Biddeford and could not go to one of our beaches.
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Editor’s Note: Goose Rocks Beach is located in and controlled by the town of Kennebunkport, not Biddeford)
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Driving through, I noticed most of the license plates are from out of state. Is this where Hills Beach is going to not provide any public parking?
We see our coastline being bought up by many who are from out of state and moving to Maine to retire. If you read the Portland Press Herald article on February 18, Maine has become the oldest state, where people over 65 outnumber the people under 18 in Maine.
It is one thing to buy up the coastline, but another when these people do whatever they can to prevent Maine residents from accessing the beaches in order to keep the coastline to themselves. I have 22 nieces and nephews and only two still reside in Maine. The others all had to go out of state to find good paying professional jobs.
If you watch the video of the public hearing meeting just before the city council voted for the moratorium, you will see there was absolutely no interest of any city council member to listen to public inputs. They were simply going through the motions and had their minds made up.
It will be interesting to see if the public hearing meeting (March 2) will be a repeat of that or whether anyone on the city council will listen to public inputs and take them into account.
Council members should be representing all city residents, not just a handful in Hills Beach.
When one sees the committee made up of three city council members who live in Hills Beach and Patricia Boston, a Hills Beach resident heading up the committee, there is little faith they will do their job of representing all residents of Biddeford, but more for their own benefit.
I believe this committee is a serious conflict of interest and unethical. I hope the mayor and other city council members choose to do that right and just thing and abandon this moratorium.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bernard Roy is a former Biddeford resident, and 1971 graduated of Biddeford High School. Today, he resides in Ada, Michigan
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NOTE: The Biddeford Gazette strongly encourages reader feedback and public commentary regarding our coverage and issues directly related to the city of Biddeford. To submit a letter to the editor or guest column, please contact us at biddefordgazette@gmail.com
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