BANGOR, Maine — Bangor Parks and Recreation is holding public forums asking community members to weigh in on the city's proposal to place 24-hour public restrooms in various parks in the city. Some people are in favor of the proposal, but others are hesitant.
Wren Bilancia, who works at the Briar Patch bookstore downtown, said public restroom options downtown are slim.
"People gotta pee," Bilancia said. "That's just the way that it is."
She said if Bagel Central or the Bangor Public Library is closed, people who are in the downtown area early in the day or late at night are often out of luck. Many previously used restrooms in Bangor City Hall before the building closed for renovations. With fewer options, people rely on restaurants that offer public restrooms.
"People are always coming and asking if we have a public restroom, which we don't, unfortunately," Bilancia explained.
The scarcity of public restrooms is not unique to the downtown area.
Tracy Willette, executive director of Bangor Parks and Recreation, said more restrooms are needed throughout the city.
He said the park restrooms would be made of steel, bolted to the ground, and contain a hand sanitizing station. There would be no running water.
Willette said the city is considering placing the restrooms at Hayford, Chapin, Coe, Fairmount, and Broadway parks. There is also some conversation about a restroom being placed on Broad Street, he said.
Sarah Carmichael, who experienced homelessness in the past, said she couldn't agree with the idea more.
"Without having public restrooms available to me ... the things that I had to do in order to maintain any level of hygiene are not things that I want to talk about necessarily at a public level," she said. "It's important for ... dignity, for me to be able to believe that I was a human being at that time."
Even though many people said they recognize the need for more access to public restrooms in the city, others, like Boyd Kronholm, executive director of the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, said it's a complicated issue.
Kronholm said he doesn't agree or disagree with the bathroom plan, but emphasized there needs to be measures to ensure that positioning 24-hour public restrooms in multiple locations in the city doesn't exacerbate existing problems.
"Who's patrolling the bathrooms to make sure that they're clean and also to make sure that there's not a bunch of needles that are found in there or people go in there by themselves with the door locked and [overdose]?" Kronholm said.
Kronholm said someone would need to be hired to regularly maintain the restrooms. He said several departments in the city, even the Bangor Police Department, are having a hard time recruiting workers to fill open jobs, emphasizing that hiring someone to monitor and maintain the restrooms wouldn't be any easier.
Carmichael said opting not to increase much-needed access to public restrooms won't make issues like homelessness and drug addiction disappear.
"Those overdose deaths and those situations are already happening. They're happening behind closed doors, in tenement housing with people that don't feel like they have access to public resources," Carmichael said. "Whether or not these public restrooms exist, those situations, those deaths, and those instances of substance use are still happening. It's a matter of what are we doing to help our community. Not necessarily to look better, but to be a healthier community. To have healthier people that are able to participate in building a place that we want to live in."
Although there are concerns people said makes them think twice, there are others who said they see an imminent need that can't be ignored.
"The need is for the entire community, and it's not one specific population," Willette added.
The first two forums on the restroom plan were held Wednesday and Thursday. Another forum will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Bangor Public Library.