State authorities repeatedly stalled a small Down East town’s efforts to overhaul the boat ramp parking area where a Mount Desert woman and her two grandchildren died last weekend, according to a town official.
Since the deaths of Sharon Bukulmez, 61, Kinsley Grubb, 5, and Sawyer Grubb, 3, on Sunday, Roque Bluffs officials have coordinated with state authorities to install a permanent gate at the boat ramp on Schoppee Point Road.
But plans to reorganize the boat ramp area, which has been the site of now two fatal incidents, have been underway since around 2021, Roque Bluffs Harbor Master Prentiss Harmon said Friday.
“It’s been an ongoing battle with the state of Maine to let us do something with that parking lot down there,” Harmon said. “Unfortunately, it looks like it took a tragic event to make it happen.”
The family was found after leaving their son and parents’ Jonesboro wedding Saturday night. The trio were headed to a Machias rental cabin but never arrived. Maine State Police are investigating the deaths and how the family ended up in Roque Bluffs, according to Shannon Moss, Department of Public Safety spokesperson.
Town officials need the Maine Department of Transportation’s cooperation because the boat ramp and road are sandwiched between state property and private land.
A spokesperson for the Maine DOT was unavailable Friday to respond to inquiries from the Bangor Daily News.
The town placed temporary barriers Tuesday night and erected the gate’s concrete posts Thursday evening, according to Harmon, who has served as harbor master since 2023.
The new gate is still being produced, but officials hope to have it installed before the coming weekend’s nor’easter, Harmon said.
The boat ramp, which was eerily quiet at noon Friday, has been the subject of public outrage after the family’s deaths. The Grubb children and grandmother were not the first to die near the ramp.
But well before the weekend tragedy, town officials had been trying for years to revamp the parking area. The plans would have reconfigured the pier, forcing traffic into a sharp right turn at the mouth of the parking lot.
“If that were set up like that, I don’t think there would be a need for a gate because you’d have to loop around the entire parking lot before you were able to line your boat up to back down the ramp,” Harmon said.
As of now, Schoppee Point Road leads straight into the ocean.
Blueprints for the reconfigured parking area have been reviewed by engineers, Harmon said.
“[We’ve] passed it off to the state a few times,” Harmon said. “Just kind of crooked.”
Maine State Representative Tiffany Strout is now pushing to advance the plans, Harmon said. Strout did not respond to inquiries from the BDN.
“Even though the ramp is marked, I am willing to work with the town or State DOT if needed to make the signage more visible to better alert those driving in the area that the ramp leads to the water,” Strout wrote on Facebook Monday.
Harmon and town clerk Jennifer Moore, who has worked for Roque Bluffs since 2023, were unaware of any other incidents at the boat ramp during their tenure. There have been no official complaints to the town since the beginning of 2023, Moore said.
The town has received significant backlash since the weekend tragedy, Moore said, adding that members of the public have blamed the town for the deaths.
Select Board members Ernest Libby and Lisa Preston did not respond to inquiries Friday from the BDN.
The Mount Desert Island family was not the first group to die near the town’s boat ramp.
In 2013, Melissa Moyer, 38, and Amy Stiner, 27 and 5 months pregnant, drowned after driving off the end of the ramp on Schoppee Point Road. A dog was also found deceased in their 2001 Dodge Caravan.
Following their deaths, town officials, with assistance from the state, installed six signs warning drivers of the road’s ending.
But even before then, in 2005, another Washington County resident came dangerously close to losing his life at the same boat ramp.
Ricky Alexander told the BDN at the time of the 2013 incident that he and a few friends endured a similar experience in the summer of 2005.
“It was late, and I was driving some buddies out to the pier to hang out for a while,” Alexander wrote in a statement. “I didn’t know the road very well, then all of a sudden SPLASH! Window deep in water. All of our cell phones were immediately ruined and we were soaking wet and cold, so we actually walked about two miles back towards town until someone finally picked us up.”
The tide had “swallowed” Alexander’s car, he said, adding that he returned to the site during the day and found one warning sign before the ramp, though it was obscured by overgrown bushes.