CAMDEN — While Camden occupies a lengthy portion of Penobscot Bay’s western shoreline, most of the land is privately owned, and the public has but a limited number of access spots to the ocean.

And some of those access points are questionable, having slipped into obscure overgrowth, and behind fences.

At its July 6 regularly scheduled meeting, the Camden Select Board agreed to reexamine the state of those access points, and resurvey the lines, if necessary.

The board also agreed that the town manager would direct the town attorney to write a letter to one Sherman’s Point Road property owner with instructions to remove a fence that is blocking a narrow town-owned roadway that allows harbor front access. 

“The first approach is asking one of abutting property owners to move some fencing that is obstructing it,” said Town Manager Audra Caler. “We are hoping we won’t have to use the $20,000 in approval up for surveying work.”

While the motion specified a $20,000 expenditure to implement the Harbor Access Study Findings for Sherman Cove, the conversation expanded into concern for other ocean access points.

Integral to the discussion was a 1994 letter to then Town Manager Roger Moody from Attorney Terry Calderwood, who was then with the firm Eaton, Peabody, Bradford and Veague. In it, Calderwood summed up the status of Camden’s public access points to the harbor. He based his conclusions on town commissioned research produced by Dick Clawson.

The purpose of that research was to, “identify legal access to the harbor along existing or apparent public rights of way” and laid out extensive deed information that substantiated or erased municipal claims to old byways to the water.

This most recent attention to public access emerged over a short bit of gravel road that runs from Sherman’s Point Road to Sherman’s Cove, on the northeast side of Camden Harbor.

According to a 1989 letter from Calderwood to then Town Manager Paul Weston,  a right of way on Sherman Cove is owned by Camden, acquired, “not as a result of a deed conveyance or dedication, but solely as a result of tax lien foreclosure....”

In 2008, Camden more clearly established ownership of a 25-foot strip of gravel road there, and specified in a consent decree with abutters that the strip of land shall have no use nor parking, “outside of the hours of 8 a.m. to sunset.”

But since then, ownership of the narrow strip has apparently again gone cloudy.

Camden resident Judy Schelble urged the Select Board July 6 to take action on the Sherman Cove access, and other harbor points. 

“I am one of the people who has come forward about Sherman’s Cove,” Schelble said. “Over the years, I’ve gone down there and most recently there is that gated part. If we don’t intervene it is going to slip away permanently because there’s more and more houses in there and I think they assume, some of those newer residents, that it is their property.”

She added: “I believe the town has so little public access to the water, it’s really critical hold on.”

Board member Alison McKellar said that in addition to the Sherman’s Point Road issue, there are other recommended survey work to be done, where public access points, “haven’t been adequately marked.”

She said: “It’s kind of community knowledge among some that they are access points but it’s not available to the general public, and they are not being maintained. There has been a trend over the years, the town hasn’t taken the lead, or monitoring and speaking up for the public interest. There a lot of property owners doing a good job of advocating for themselves, hiring lawyers, being really top of these particular places.”

McKellar referenced agreements between the town and private property owners that do not benefit the public, such as the town agreeing not to print access points on maps.

“I’d like us to come up with a better strategy in the future and taking stock of these access point and going around to monitor,” she said. “Sherman’s Cove in particular is a sad story.”

Years ago, said McKellar, Sherman’s Point had once been publicly owned and known as Thorndike Park.

Caler said at the end of the discussion that her goal is to return to the Select Board with a plan for various municipally-owned harbor points, “so that they are more obvious and accessible.”

Reach Editorial Director Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657