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York County supervisor maintains push to look into beach user fee

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County Supervisor Walter Zaremba is sticking by his idea that York County consider charging people to use Yorktown Beach and said it was an important discussion for the Board of Supervisors to have.

At the board’s work session Tuesday, Zaremba kicked off talk of the beach during the meeting’s “matters by the board” time. Other supervisors followed suit and said they’ll talk about it at future meetings, but made their opposition clear.

He announced at the July 18 meeting that he had asked County Administrator Neil Morgan to investigate if installing a nominal fee to use the beach would benefit the county.

Zaremba said a fee would have the people using the beach helping to offset the cost of maintaining it. He also pointed out that beachgoers are not frequenting the businesses at Yorktown Riverwalk, but park in spaces in the parking garage that are meant for patrons of those businesses and sometimes leave trash behind.

Since the meeting and a subsequent article in the Daily Press, the supervisors said they have received a flood of comments on the idea of a fee and observed a deluge of social media commentary.

Supervisor Chad Green said he got about as many comments on the beach from his constituents as he did birthday greetings from friends and family. Supervisor Tom Shepperd said people had approached him on the golf course to ask for his thoughts.

The supervisors commended the engagement they saw from people. “We’ve had some great, great citizen dialogue, thanks to the Daily Press and the new phenomenon called Facebook pages,” Zaremba said. He noted, however, that not everyone commenting was from the county.

He said he identified many people on social media against a fee as people who do not live in York County, therefore not paying the taxes to maintain the beach. He said his review of comments showed the segment of people who voiced support of a user fee were largely from York.

“That beach is paid for by the taxpayers of the county,” Zaremba said. “Because of the abuse, both in terms of utilization of the parking structure and the condition they leave the beach when they pick up and leave for the day, is it time to start maybe thinking of a user fee to offset the taxpaying citizens’ contribution to maintaining that operation?”

Green said littering was a problem at the beach and it may be necessary to raise littering fines. Green previously said he would not support a fee and said the county needed to figure out how to bring more people to the Riverwalk and its businesses.

“I’m all for open beaches,” said Supervisor Jeff Wassmer. He agreed parking was a problem and said trash cans on the beach probably needed to be emptied more frequently, but said he opposed a user fee.

“I’m not happy about charging anyone to go to the beach in Yorktown,” Shepperd said. He said the comments he got from his constituents were “not only no, but hell no.” But Shepperd said he would participate in a dialogue.

No time frame for a future discussion was established.

Reyes can be reached by phone at 757-247-4692.