“This happens a lot when my family and I get together to watch the Fourth of July parade,” she said. “Especially since it is a holiday and most businesses are closed, there is nowhere down here to go.”
Despite that, she said on Feb. 24, she is not a fan of the Town Council’s 4-2 vote on Feb. 22 to approve public restrooms for Riverfront Park, even though the $75,000 cost is being shouldered by a local group called the Riverfront Committee.
“I just think that the price is a bit too high,” she said.
The decision by the council followed a divided 3-2 vote in October 2015, when the majority of councilors decided that the Riverfront Committee would have to put the brakes on the project because the town did not want to be responsible for maintenance costs even if private funds built the bathrooms.
The committee formed about a decade ago to create the downtown park, which centers on Gateway Crossing, a pedestrian footbridge that stretches from the North Street Bridge across the Meduxnekeag River.
Michelle Williams, who owns Shelley’s Cafe and Bakery in Market Square, said she was a bit surprised at the cost of the restrooms, but said she believed that some type of facilities are definitely needed in the downtown.
“I have had a ton of people come into my shop over the past few years and ask to use the restrooms, to the point where I unfortunately started to have to say ‘no,’” she said. “It is not bad in the winter, but during the summer time when there are big events like Midnight Madness and the Fourth of July parade, it just gets out of control.”
“One time, I went through more than 16 rolls of toilet paper,” Williams said. “I finally had to tell people ‘no more.’ That gets expensive. You hate to do it, but there is just one little bathroom.”
Kathryn Harnish and her husband, Rob Lawless, who own The Vault Restaurant and run Took A Leap Farm, a small goat dairy farm and state-licensed creamery in Houlton, also are among the vendors who sell their wares at the Houlton Community Market in the downtown. Harnish, who is a member of the market board, said that when she is out selling her goods each Saturday during the summer and fall, “a number” of customers have asked her if restroom facilities are available.
“We always try to direct them to the store owners who are open and who will allow customers to come in and use their facilities,” she said. “I think that the number of people who are asking has increased as traffic to the market has increased. So, I think this is certainly something that needs to be addressed, in my opinion.”
Williams said she is worried about the potential for vandalism in the park. The park has become a growing attraction for vandals, who have carved obscenities into the wooden benches, broken streetlights, strewn trash around and sprayed graffiti on the storyboards that note the history of the town.
“That is a lot of money for a restroom, and that place is vandalized a lot,” she said. “I just hope they don’t build it and then it gets destroyed.”
Houlton Police Chief Joe McKenna said last fall that vandalism was rampant in the park in the summer of 2015, and it was mostly acts committed by youths who were down there taking advantage of the free WiFi. Once the WiFi was shut off, the vandalism ceased. Any vandalism to the restroom would fall under the town’s insurance policy, according to town officials.
Construction on the restrooms is expected to begin this spring.
