THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR COMMUNITY ADVOCACY. THE KIDS ARE RETURNING TO GOOD HARBOR BEACH FOR THEIR NEXT PRACTICE. Councilor-at-large Jeff Worthley shares the following,”I just learned that that advocacy for returning students back to Good Harbor has been effective and a decision was made to reverse course. The kids exercise Monday, Wednesday and Friday so I think you’ll see them back there on Friday.”
Dear Community,
I don’t know if we can make this happen or not but there is a situation happening at Good Harbor Beach that I think everyone who cares about our local kids should be aware of. For 36 years, Gloucester football coaches have been running an excellent summer conditioning work-out for kids at the footbridge side of the beach. The conditioning practice is held three mornings a week and starts at around 5:30am, lasting for about two hours. Coach Lattof, Coach O’Connor, and another gentleman, Craig I believe is his name, are there giving the kids a very challenging conditioning practice, and also using the time to develop great teamwork and strong citizen spirits. The kids have summer jobs and that is why the early schedule. The team players are respectful, helpful, courteous, clean-up any beverage bottles, and are not any noisier than the beach is on a typical sunny weekend summer morning when the beach is beginning to fill up. And the noise level doesn’t come close to the dull roar that is Good Harbor Beach by noon time on any given sunny summer day.
ONE neighbor complaining about the noise during practice does not warrant moving the kids off Good Harbor Beach to Stage Fort Park, which is exactly what has happened. To see these kids so earnestly practicing every morning, this generation that has grown up in such turbulent times, with Covid and “active shooter drills” as part of their daily routine, treated like less than the good people they are striving to become is just plain infuriating!
The kids are really disappointed, to say the least. They were really getting into checking on the Plovers and took great pride in telling people to watch out for them. The kids felt like Good Harbor Beach is what made conditioning special; it is something unique to Gloucester that no one else has and it is their way of connecting with nature and the community.
The objective of our Plover program is to work with the community to ensure that Good Harbor Beach is open for Everyone to share the shore, most importantly kept open for our high school sports teams, along with endangered shorebirds. Please share this and please write to Mayor Verga and City Councilors to please let them know that we want the high school kids back on the beach.
Thank you most sincerely,
Kim and team Piping Plover Ambassadors
Gloucester High School kids Good Harbor Beach morning conditioning practice
Stage Ft isn’t the same. I wonder why they didn’t just move the practice to the center of the beach.
It’s very obvious the city of gloucester prioritizes its richer “summer home” community (most of whom don’t live in town year round) over the “regular” communities and their children.
The local government is useless and more often than not, regressive in nature
As they should. Who is paying the majority of taxes? Town is already losing out on gentrification fast enough to Beverly and Salem. Never understood the logic that someone has a “right” to live somewhere because their grandparents lived in that place.
You Sir, speak like a moron. They should not cow tow to the rich in an area who are hardly present. Don’t give me that tax bullshit. The middle to lower class would love to have the means to pay those taxes on such properties. By the way, those property taxes is where the contribution to the local economy ends in a lot of cases. You never understood the logic that somebody has a “right to live in an area”. That is actually a basic, fundamental right. Do you have the right to access the trust funds of those generations before you just because you won the birth lottery. Go pound the sand that these kids have earned the right to run on and take your ass back to the country club.
Hope it works out for the students. Shame on that person, it sure wouldn’t happen in NY. 😉
I agree! Kids should be heard on the beach. Practicing on it, playing on it, climbing on the rocks, whatever. Let the kids use the beach!
These are great kids. My best friends son is a captain this year & they are dedicated to their sport!!!! Not fair that one complaint happened and has resulted in this!!!!! Do better for our children who are trying to be their best!!!
It’s always one neighbor. If they want a private beach, perhaps this neighbor should relocate??