Lawmaker pens beach pass bill
Proposed legislation takes aim at fee policies, entrance rules
A push to make beach access more affordable across Connecticut is gaining renewed attention among state lawmakers while also drawing criticism in seaside towns such as Greenwich and Stamford.
A bill that would require coastal towns to lower the cost of visitor beach passes to charge the same as state parks was recently introduced by state Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven. The bill would also prevent communities from barring beach visitors from other towns based on publichealth concerns about the spread of COVID-19, measures that some communities have invoked.
The latest proposal from Lemar follows a long-running and contentious debate over beach access in Connecticut, and whether a town’s high cost of beach passes for out-of-towners is discriminatory.
“It doesn’t surprise me that every approach that any of these communities take is to limit who can access public beaches,” Lemar said. The state lawmaker called the system used by seashore communities discriminatory, comparing them to restrictive land covenants and exclusionary zoning policies that barred low-income Blacks and Hispanics from buying homes in the suburbs.
But the shoreline municipalities defend their fee policies as necessary to cover costs.
In Greenwich, a resident can pick up a seasonal beach pass for just $35. A daily pass for beach access is $8 per person for residents and nonresidents, but out-of-towners must also pay $40 per car to visit the beach in Greenwich. Nonresidents must also take a separate trip to a parks-and-rec office, as the passes are not sold at the gatehouse to Greenwich Point.
First Selectman Fred Camillo called the beach-pass system in Greenwich a fair policy.
“In Greenwich, we were one of the only towns to remain open to nonresidents during the pandemic, save for when we entered a red zone. Our beach access policy has been very measured, open, and well thought out, as well as reasonable and fair,” he said in an email this week.
In Stamford, out-oftowners also pay higher fees to access the shoreline. On weekdays, a car not registered in the city is charged $42.50 for a weekday pass, nearly double the fee for a car registered in Stamford, $26.50. A seasonal pass for a resident is $26.59, while a nonresident pays $292.46.
Mayor David Martin said he believed the city was maintaining its accessibility to non-residents in a fair manner, while not burdening city residents.
“We’ve seen a few cities up and down the coast take a very exclusive way of dealing with other people that, ‘These are our beaches and you can’t have them. Go to Stamford,’ ” Martin said.
The lowest cost for visiting the beaches is for those who have cars registered in Stamford, and therefore pay vehicle tax to the city, he said.
“Technically, we’re not charging to use the beach or to use our parks. It’s a parking pass is what it really is,” Martin said. “We’re saying, ‘For those who want to use the beaches in Stamford, you’ve got to pay a parking fee. But since you’re not paying for a car registered here in Stamford, the Board of Representatives has set a higher fee for that.’”
The fees apply to visits to Cove Island, Cummings, West Beach, Southfield, Czescik Marina, Dorothy Heroy & Newman Mills Riverbank Walk Parks in Stamford.
In one costly example, the town of Westport sells a seasonal beach pass to local residents $50, while nonresidents are charged $775. A daily pass on the weekend costs $65 for an out-oftowner. First Selectman Jim Marpe has said the town’s fees cover the cost of beach operations while not imposing a heavy burden on local taxpayers.
Limiting access
Seashore access has also been restricted by some municipalities during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also drawn criticism from civil-rights advocates. The town of Fairfield, which charges a nonresident $250 for a seasonal beach pass, temporarily blocked all out-of-town visitors from its shores last summer.
Stamford’s Martin disagrees with that policy. “My bigger issue, and this happened in the last summer, is that if all the other cities up and down the coast are going to make it exclusive to themselves and block everyone else, then we are put in the same position,” he said.
“I’m hopeful that we’ll recognize that beach access, waterfront access should not be restricted to just a few individuals. This is a diverse community, and I want to respect that diversity,” Martin said.
But state Rep. Stephen Meskers, D-Greenwich, said he felt the issue was valid — “I understand the concern”— and might be worthy of discussion by the state legislature. It would be unwise to impose a single standard on different towns, he said, and a “municipality by municipality” approach seemed more reasonable.
“You want a balanced approach,” said Meskers, whose district covers the shoreline from Byram to Old Greenwich. “I want to make sure there’s fair access to the residents, and fair consideration for outof-towners. I think there’s a balancing act in Greenwich, in a nuanced and fair way.”
Camillo said the state legislators should work on other issues. “For the sake of our state, please get to work on legislation that is forward-thinking and smart, not divisive and attention-getting,” said the Greenwich first selectman, who is a former state representative.
Meskers said he was mostly focused on the COVID-19 issue and returning to normalcy, as are other policy-makers.
Long-lasting debate
Brenden Leydon, a Stamford lawyer who filed a lawsuit in 1998 against the town of Greenwich after he was turned away from Greenwich Point while jogging, said he still supports measures to make beach access less expensive and restrictive.
“It’s sort of the unfinished business of my lawsuit,” he said this week.
A 2001 state Supreme Court ruling prohibited Connecticut municipalities from banning nonresidents from their beaches, saying access must be granted to the public. But the issue of fees and permits was left unaddressed in the ruling, allowing municipalities to craft their own policies.
“Price discrimination, that is clearly being done,” Leydon said, citing the $775 fee for a nonresident season pass in Westport. “All of these things are in contradiction to the (state) Supreme Court saying it’s a fundamental right.”
The bill proposed by Lemar, the New Haven legislator, has been referred to the Committee on Planning and Development. It’s not clear whether it will be a priority as the legislature deals with the coronavirus crisis, the demand for vaccines and the economic impact of the pandemic.
TRUMBULL — The life of Nero Hawley reads so much like a movie script it seems hard to believe Hollywood hasn’t filmed it.
Born into slavery and given away as a wedding gift at age 17, he served with distinction in George Washington’s Continental Army before becoming a prominent businessman and landowner, all while spending two decades emancipating five other members of his family.
“For a Black man at that time to be in business and own property was a really big deal,” said Lois Levine, president emeritus of the Trumbull Historical Society. “He owned property all over town, was active in his church. If he had been white, he would have been first selectman.”
Hawley was born in the Tashua area, then part of Stratford, in 1742 and was one of about 25 slaves in the area. From birth, he was the property of Peter Burr Mallet, according to “From Valley Forge to Freedom: A Story of A Black Patriot,” a biography of Hawley written by E. Merrill Beach and published in 1975.
Beach was the first president of the Trumbull Historical Society and wrote several books about town history in addition to donating the land that would later become Beach Memorial Park.
“Nero’s story has so many interlocking parts with modern day Trumbull,” said history teacher Meredith Ramsey. “It is fascinating that he was continually able to reinvent himself.”
Ramsey, a Trumbull native and a society board member, teaches history in Wilton. She also has spent the past few years researching Nero Hawley’s life and developing a program designed to bring his story to Trumbull school children.
“The African American voice is sadly lacking in history,” she said. “Many people played a huge role in this country’s founding, and they just don’t get the recognition they deserve.”
Not much is known about Hawley’s early life. In 1758, Mallet’s daughter Phebe married Daniel Hawley and the couple received Nero as a wedding gift from Mallet, along with a house and barn and 20 acres of land from Daniel’s parents.
The house still stands along what is today Daniels Farm Road, according to Hawley Family geneologist Pam Hawley Marlin.
“It really opens people’s eyes to learn that there was slavery and a slave trade in Connecticut at that time,” Ramsey said.
Mallet, one of Tashua’s earliest settlers, was known to have owned numerous slaves and traded them during the French and Indian War, according to Beach. Two years after giving Nero to his daughter and son-inlaw, Mallet died of smallpox at age 48. In his will, he ordered his slaves, possibly including Nero’s mother and other family members, sold.
During the next 19 years, Nero Hawley worked in Daniel’s saw mill and clay pit, gaining expertise that he later put to use for his own benefit and his family’s.
He married Peg, who was a slave of the Rev. James Beebe, in 1761. Though he remained the property of Daniel Hawley, Nero lived on Beebe’s farm and worked in his mill. He and Peg had four children over the next 16 years.
The turning point in Nero Hawley’s life came on April 20, 1777, when he made the 25-mile trip to Danbury and enlisted in the 2nd Connecticut Regiment of the Continental Army in Daniel Hawley’s place. By signing up for the duration of the war, Nero was entitled to a bonus, and he earned a salary of $6.67 per month, about $164 today, according to Beach.
“During his time in the army, he was present at some of the most important events of the war,” Ramsey said. “His regiment engaged the British at the Battle of Monmouth, he was with the army during the winter at Valley Forge. His unit was at West Point during Benedict Arnold’s betrayal.”
Interestingly, during the Revolutionary War, Black soldiers served in fully integrated units, according to the U.S. Army.
Emancipated in 1782 after his war service, Nero Hawley, then 41 years old, returned to Daniel
Hawley’s farm as a hired hand but by 1785 had purchased five acres of land including a clay pit along modern day White Plains Road with money he had saved, combined with his army pension. Nero Hawley also purchased a small house, described as a cabinlike structure near Daniel Hawley’s house, from Beebe.
The clay pit and kiln, used to bake bricks, were located near the current Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Ramsey said. Some of the bricks, uncovered during the construction of the Route 25 connector in 1974, are on display at the historical society’s museum. Many still bear scorches from being heated and cured in the kiln.
“When the workers uncovered them, they brought them to Mr. Beach, and he knew right away based on where they were found, that they had to be from Nero Hawley,” Levine said. “These were actually loaned to the Smithsonian, which put them on display for a while before returning them.”
The income generated by the
brick-making business, along with several properties around town, allowed Nero to buy Peg and two of his children out of slavery. His two youngest children were probably freed around 1801 by Beebe’s widow. Beebe himself had died in 1785. A census of Trumbull in 1800 listed four slaves and 31 free Blacks, out of a total population of 1,291, according to Beach.
Following the emancipation of his family, records of Hawley’s life become more scarce, but he did purchase a wooded plot near current day Hedgehog Lane for use in timbering. He later sold that land to Joseph Plumb, a fellow Revolutionary War veteran.
The final land transaction of Nero Hawley’s life came in 1807, when he and a small group of other men bought a lot next to Daniel Hawley’s property to be used as a burial ground, according to Marlin. The land eventually became Riverside Cemetery, and when Nero Hawley died in 1817, at age 75, he was buried there. Peg Hawley, who died in 1833, is also buried there.
Ramsey said it was important to keep the Nero Hawley legacy alive, especially to Trumbull students.
“He really had an incredible life and he impacted so many aspects of the town,” she said. “To come from slavery and see how he and his family made a life for themselves right here where they are now. This story needs to be told.”