Kennebunkport – BIDDEFORD GAZETTE

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.

The Biddeford City Council recently enacted a six-month moratorium on continued development at the University of New England’s Biddeford campus to allow city officials and a new subcommittee time to review and recommend potential changes

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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Local author Susan Graham discusses her book that recounts devastating damage to Fortunes Rocks and other Biddeford neighborhoods

By RANDY SEAVER, Editor

It would become the largest natural disaster in Maine’s history, and it destroyed dozens of homes in many of Biddeford’s coastal neighborhoods.

Overall, the “Great Fire of 1947” caused more than $30 million in damages (roughly $438 million in today’s dollars) destroying entire towns and leaving more than 2,500 Maine people homeless.

Though the fires caused considerable damage in several communities, including Bar Harbor, York County was especially hard hit.

“It was devastating for so many families, especially in Fortunes Rocks,” says local author Susan Graham.

Graham recently published “Lost Fortunes Rocks: A Maine Summer Colony and the Fire of 1947,” a detailed account of how the devastating fires impacted the city of Biddeford, including its major employers and local government.

Local author Susan Graham holds a copy of her latest book, which offers detailed information about the “Great Fires of 1947” and how they destroyed entire neighborhoods and impacted Biddeford. (Seaver photo)

Graham’s book offers more than 180 pages of historical photos and meticulously researched information about the fire’s impact on local families, including her own parents who had moved to Biddeford from Kennebunkport just before the fire.

“It was a labor of love,” Graham said during a recent interview about her book at the Lincoln Hotel in Biddeford. “I just found it fascinating, and I had this personal connection to the fire because of where my family lived at the time.”

Much of Graham’s research was conducted at the McArthur Library in Biddeford during the COVID pandemic.

“The library was a treasure trove of information,” she recalled. “They are such a wonderful resource for the community.”

Graham said it seemed – at the time – that all of York County was on fire. In fact, the fire caused extensive damage in the western parts of the county, including the small towns of Newfield and Parsonsfield – but its most devastating impact in York County happened along the shoreline from Kennebunkport to Biddeford Pool, including the resort villages of Goose Rocks Beach, Granite Point and Fortunes Rocks.

According to Graham, the weather conditions that fueled the fire were quite similar to last year’s drought conditions in southern Maine.

“The summer of 1947 was exceptionally dry,” Graham explained. “It made heavily wooded rural areas into a virtual tinderbox.”

There are many theories about what ignited the blaze that raged for nearly two weeks in mid-October. Graham and other historians say it could have been a combination of things including human activity such as a tossed cigarette or autumn brush burning.

Graham said bucket brigades worked around the clock near Fortunes Rocks Beach, but those volunteers and the city’s firefighting resources were pulled away from the coast and redirected to protecting the central part of the city.

“There were concerns that the fires would continue up Rte. 111 from Arundel and cross Five Points, threatening the city’s hospitals, “Graham said. “The city’s fathers didn’t want to risk losing both the Webber and Trull hospitals. Who could question that decision?”

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“The city’s fathers didn’t want to risk losing both the Webber and Trull hospitals.”

— Susan Graham

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Graham says the fire raged from treetop to treetop, fueled by 40 mph wind gusts. Though roughly 50 people remained in Fortunes Rocks to fight the blaze, it was not enough to prevent what she describes as devastating damage to that neighborhood.

Large local employers, including the Saco-Lowell shops, shut down production so that their employees could help the city fight the rampaging fires.

About 60 homes were destroyed in Fortunes Rocks, Graham says, pointing out that eastern portions of Biddeford were at the time a “rural bread basket” that included several farms and a major source of food for the region.

Graham says it took her almost two years to compile the research and self-publish her book.

Copies of Graham’s book – in both hardcover and paperback — are available for sale at the Brick Store Museum in Kennebunk and online at grayeaglebooks@gmail.com

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Randy Seaver is the editor and founder of the Biddeford Gazette. He may be reached by email: randy@randyseaver.com

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Tag: Kennebunkport

LETTER: City is treating UNE unfairly

The Fire of 1947’s devastating impact on Biddeford