Wells joins the Free Moody Beach fight: Town will side with public access advocates

Shawn P. Sullivan, Portsmouth Herald
·4 min read

WELLS, Maine — The Wells Select Board on Tuesday announced the town will join public beach advocates in their legal fight for more rights at Moody Beach.

Specifically, Select Board Chair John MacLeod III announced the town will file an amicus brief in what has become known as the Masucci case, which the state’s Maine Supreme Judicial Court is expected to decide later this year.

“The town will be taking a position, along with the plaintiffs, that is supportive of public-use rights on Moody Beach,” MacLeod said at the Select Board’s meeting, which was held in an auditorium at York County Community College to accommodate many members of the public.

Advocates for allowing expanded public use of intertidal spaces across Maine's beaches march on Moody Beach on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023. During a meeting on May 21, 2024, the Wells Select Board announced it will join their cause.
Advocates for allowing expanded public use of intertidal spaces across Maine's beaches march on Moody Beach on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023. During a meeting on May 21, 2024, the Wells Select Board announced it will join their cause.

MacLeod said the town will argue that the public’s uses of intertidal zones on Moody Beach should not be restricted to “fishing, fowling and navigation,” a centuries-old assertion reinforced by a 1989 court case that groups, such as Free Moody Beach and Our Maine Beaches, are now trying to overturn.

For years, public beach advocates have pushed for more rights in the intertidal zones, asserting that the homeowners who own them have intimidated them with no-trespassing signs and calls to the police.

Peter and Cathy Masucci, of Wells, are among the plaintiffs in the case. The defendants are Judy’s Moody, LLC, OA2012 Trust, and Ocean 503, LLC, all three of whom claim ownership of intertidal properties along Moody Beach.

MacLeod acknowledged that some in the community have asked the town to make “significant changes” immediately to its policies and practices regarding Moody Beach, but he added that such action would be “premature,” given the town’s involvement now in the Masucci case.

A sign at the boundary between North Beach in Ogunquit and Moody Beach in Wells, shown here in September 2017, advises beachgoers that Moody Beach is private "to the low water mark."
A sign at the boundary between North Beach in Ogunquit and Moody Beach in Wells, shown here in September 2017, advises beachgoers that Moody Beach is private "to the low water mark."

MacLeod also said that any other actions at this time risked escalating a conflict that already is high in tensions. He said the board wants to see first how the state’s Supreme Court will resolve the Masucci case before any other decisions are made.

“The board realizes this is an evolving issue, which is why it decided to take a careful, measured, step-by-step approach to avoid actions that could be destabilizing for all on this beach,” MacLeod said.

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Members of the public applauded when MacLeod finished reading the board’s official statement.

The board then proceeded to hold a two-hour public hearing, during which both sides of the Moody Beach debate spoke.

While public beach advocates have been vocal for years now, holding rallies, marching, writing letters to the editor and issuing press releases, private property owners on Moody Beach comparatively have been silent in their public remarks.

Steven Levesque was among the Moody Beach property owners who spoke at the Select Board meeting. He argued that Wells has five public beaches with as many miles of free shores for the public to enjoy. He stated that two courts and even a town consultant’s report from a few years ago all came to the same conclusion.

“Moody Beach is private,” Levesque said.

Levesque said the beach has three rights-of-way for the public to access the water. He said he has never seen anyone stop a member of the public from walking or running on the beach.

“The plaintiffs and Free Moody Beach should learn to make friends with the Moody Beach homeowners, just as their parents did decades ago,” he said.

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The board will provide the public an opportunity to continue speaking on the Moody Beach issue during a meeting on June 10, MacLeod said.

In the months leading up to the meeting on Tuesday, Free Moody Beach asked Wells to follow the same approach in the Masucci case that Kennebunkport took when it successfully argued, in a case decided in Maine Superior Court in 2019, that the town owned Goose Rocks Beach. In a letter to the town, the group argued that the Kennebunkport case showed that legal pathways exist for Wells, despite the 1989 court ruling.

In a press release on Tuesday, Free Moody Beach acknowledged that many people at the meeting were “happy” with the town’s statement but added that others still want Wells to take more immediate actions than MacLeod outlined.

With its press release, Free Moody Beach reiterated demands its members want the town to meet.

Among those demands: form a group of town officials, local experts, and Moody Beach residents that will determine necessary steps to rectify issues; hold regular community meetings to give the public opportunities to speak; amend the wordings on three right-of-way signs at Moody Beach that the group believes favors property owners; stop the police from responding to reports of trespassing in intertidal zones, unless “grave danger” is involved; and give beachfront homeowners a tax discount if they agree not to prevent the public from being on the sand abutting their properties.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Wells joins Moody Beach fight: Town to side with public-access groups