Parking on Sidewalks, Commercial Vehicles, and Enforcement All Up For Discussion.
May 20, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Window Panes Home and Garden.
MOUNT DESERT—The Mount Desert Selectboard approved creating a parking committee to help the town address its parking issues.
“I think it’s time for us to tighten up a little bit without having a ton of inadvertent issues pop up,” Town Manager Alex Kimball said during the board’s May 19 meeting.
Some issues, Kimball said, were easier to approach. One of those issues would be vehicles parking on town sidewalks.
”We’re going to start enforcing that. We’re going to start pushing harder on that particular issue,” Kimball said. “That’s just a straight public safety hazard.”
Some areas of concern, such as commercial parking, need more thought.
One of the “stickiest” ones that the group needs to be thoughtful about is commercial vehicles servicing properties.
“They are a vital component of this town,” Kimball said, “but they end up in places that aren’t technically parking.”
The town will have to dig down hard on that one, he said.
The topography of the town and that its population grows by five times in the summer makes it difficult, Kimball said. It’s a town that has no problems at all for the winter, but does for two to three months out of the year, Kimball said.
“Unintended consequences when we come into this territory” are easy to come by, Kimball said, and they want to be sure to not change the character of the town.
Board member Rodney King said he was impressed by the public input at the last meeting.
Story Litchfield said she was worried about new building projects in tricky spots on Peabody Drive and Sargeant Drive.
“As someone whose been driving down Harborside and white knuckling that for years, it’s pretty challenging, I think,” she said.
Kimball said setting up potential temporary park and rides or other ways to mitigate the hazard were important, such as what is currently happening at Harbor Drive.
“Would it be unreasonable to say you’re going to have to flag it as part of the job?” King asked.
Another member of the public said that enforcing the two-hour spaces and having the police not just drive by but ticket would be helpful.
“What we don’t want to do is essentially give them some whiplash where we say okay enforce enforce” and then when people stop, telling them not to, Kimball said of the police department.
Steve Pinkham asked if it was time for the town to have its own parking attendant.
Police Chief David Kerns said one of the Bar Harbor parking attendants currently comes over and checks the whole town daily. He said that they can restructure how that works when the committee comes back with recommendations.
In April, the town had held a listening session about parking-related issues, which Kimball summarized in a memo. He also made the following recommendations, which included having the town “begin stricter enforcement of sidewalk parking immediately. Vehicles must not block sidewalks, and will be ticketed for creating hazardous situations. This will apply to all vehicles, commercial and residential” and the “formation of an ad-hoc Parking Committee.”
He recommended the committee include five-to-seven residents, the town manager, public works director and police chief. All town staff would be ex-officio. The public works director and police chief could designate someone to sit on the committee in their place.
“The purpose of the committee will be to provide the town a series of recommendations on many of the more difficult parking related issues, as outlined below. The committee will begin meetings as soon as formed. Interested residents should reach out to the Town Manager immediately,” Kimball wrote.
Initial topics of discussion would be potential changes in parking areas and regular parking on streets; changing traffic patterns along Streamboat Wharf Road; adding paid parking in lots near the Northeast Harbor Marina; short-term parking recommendations for “commercial vehicles servicing properties in town, including deliveries, construction, landscaping services, and similar uses;” best enforcement methods; overnight parking rules; improvements to town parking signs.
ONE BIN, ALL IN
The town also learned about a new program for recycling, which no longer requires sorting of household trash and recyclables.
Special Events and Liquor License Renewals.
The board approved public space special event applications for the Perkins & Mullan wedding ceremony at Suminsby Park and Lynn Higgins and AA District 18 small picnic and meeting at Suminsby Park.
The board renewed Mandy Fountaine’s Abel’s Lobster Pound at 13 Abels Lane Mount Desert liquor license.
It accepted a $200 gift to the Mount Desert Fire Department from the First National Bank in recognition of EMS week.
It authorized $19,000 to be used towards the purchase of wildland firefighting personal protective and suppression equipment.
It approved a paving contract with Wellman Paving for FY27 Annual Paving in an amount not to exceed $420,000.
The board approved a contract with Allen’s Environmental in an amount not to exceed $60,000 for inspecting, cleaning, and mapping of wastewater collection components.
There are four separate collection systems. This gives the town a baseline cleaning inspection and detailed map of where everything is in the system. It helps the town get on a 3-5 year cycle and prioritize when replacements need to be done.
LINK TO LEARN MORE
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/fwnW57DNKCg?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
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