LUBEC — Over five days in the fall of 1999, volunteers gathered at Bennet Athletic Field to build a playground for the community.
Originally called “The Hornet Hangout,” the playground was designed through a collaboration among residents, volunteers — including children from Lubec and Campobello Island — and Leather & Associates, a Florida playground design and construction company founded in 1971.
The result was a little more than a quarter‑acre of slides, towers, tunnels and swings, including a lobster boat, bait shop and a miniature version of Lubec’s West Quoddy Head Lighthouse. For 25 years, it has given multiple generations of Lubec residents a place to enjoy.
Now, a quarter‑century after the playground was built at Lubec Elementary School, access to it has become a contentious issue.
At issue is whether the Lubec School Department, which provided the land for the playground’s construction but did not contribute to building or maintaining it, can restrict community access during school hours.
Melissa Lee, who led the volunteer group that built the playground in the 1990s and whose name appears on its certificate of completion, said the project relied on mutual goodwill between volunteers and the school and that she sees no room for limiting public access.
“The school is part of the community,” she said. “They should absolutely use it all they want, but they cannot have exclusive use.”
School officials granted use of the land for the playground in a 1998 letter on Maine School Administrative District 19 letterhead that reads: “The MSAD No. 19 Board of Directors approves and supports the construction of a creative playground on the Bennet Athletic Field site. The Board authorizes the use of the land for this purpose.”
The school’s first attempt to assert control over the community playground may have come in September 2024, when a sign was posted establishing rules for the use of the playground.
Rule 7 reads, “Playground is open to the public only when school is not in session.”
The playground committee, a small group of parents and volunteers that maintains the playground, painted over Rule 7, and someone at the school later asked School Board Director Richard Huntley to remove the paint. Huntley is employed by the town’s Public Works Department.
The conflict began in earnest June 9, when Sandra Teran, a local parent, brought her two children to town to use the playground during school hours. Teran has said there was no incident that day that prompted the confrontation, but she was asked to leave by two teachers and the principal, Tina Wormell, who followed her into the Lubec Community Outreach Center after she left the playground.
Wormell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The issue has arisen at subsequent School Board and Board of Selectmen meetings.
The Quoddy Tides reported that at the Aug. 6 meeting, Superintendent MaryEllen Day of Alternative Organizational Structure 77, known as AOS 77, said the playground “is on school property, and we’re responsible for it.”
Reached by Monitor Local, Day said the issue involves insurance. She could not point to a specific provision in the school’s policy that makes community access to the playground a liability. She declined to comment further, saying she wanted to give the School Board and the playground committee time to resolve the matter.
A meeting between School Board members and representatives of the playground committee has yet to be scheduled, but the committee’s chair, Alex Henry, said the plan is to meet by early September. Henry is also Lubec’s code enforcement officer.
The school’s property includes plots on both sides of South Street, a public road, and the playground is one of several community resources located on school grounds.
After Lubec High School closed in 2010, the district opened parts of the building for multiple uses. The Lubec Community Outreach Center has leased part of the former high school since 2021, operating a community learning center, a food pantry, a thrift store and a community garden, all of which are open during school hours.
MSAD 19’s property also includes the basketball court near the Dollar General, and one end of the Downeast Coastal Conservancy’s Mowry Beach Trail is located behind the school.
Aside from the community playground, which sits across South Street to the south of the school building, the school has two playgrounds for students’ exclusive use. A small playground surrounded by chain‑link fencing at the northeast end of the building is used by younger students, and a larger recreational area behind the school is used for recess, with swing sets, a jungle gym and a basketball court.
The equipment behind the school shows signs of neglect, with two of the three merry‑go‑rounds wrapped in caution tape, several swings missing from swing sets and two tetherball stations without balls.
Day confirmed that the school department has not invested money in maintaining or improving the playground behind the school during her tenure as superintendent, saying funding for recreational equipment is often among the first cuts when a school faces budget reductions.
In contrast, volunteers and donors have maintained the community playground, which has lasted longer than its builders expected.
A major restoration effort took place for the playground’s 25th anniversary in the spring and summer of 2024, with volunteers and area businesses from Lubec and Campobello Island contributing money and labor to restore and maintain the equipment and grounds.
