Biddeford City Councilor Marc Lessard and I have a long and somewhat tangled history that goes back more than two decades.

Lessard — who holds one of the two at-large seats on the council — is the longest serving elected member in the Biddeford-Saco area, and he can always be counted upon for a good quote, a clever analogy or a mind-baffling rationalization of his position on any given issue.

In all fairness, Old Orchard Beach Town Council Chairman Shawn O’Neill has held elected office in that tiny seaside hamlet since before the ocean was invented.

But back to Biddeford, its pristine beaches and a potential threat to public safety.

Earlier this week, the Biddeford City Council voted to table a potential change to its ordinances that would require all dogs to be leashed in Clifford Park, a rather densely wooded park that includes several walking and hiking trails near the center of the city.

Before we proceed any further, you should know that nothing drives your Google analytics better than the topics of food or dogs. Not abortion. Not climate change. Not gun control.

Dogs and pasta. That’s what really drives public engagement on the world-wide web. Serious as a heart attack. It’s true. Google it.

Anyway, Lessard is less than pleased that the council didn’t take more immediate action. He shared three graphic, personal examples of why dogs should always be on a leash. During the council discussion, Lessard told his peers that he has personally witnessed some gruesome attacks by unleashed dogs, including an attack on his four-year-old granddaughter and another story in which an unleashed dog killed another dog that was on a leash.

“If you saw what I saw, then you would support this change to require dogs to be on a leash,” Lessard said. “It’s a no brainer.”

But Councilor Bobby Mills, who rarely misses an opportunity either to pander to popular opinion or to be annoyed with what people say about him on the internet, said he sees no reason to change the ordinance that allows dogs “under voice control by their owners” to roam freely in Clifford Park.

“I have not heard an outcry to enact this,” Mills said, somehow ignoring the fact that more people have contacted the city council about this issue than any other issue since former Mayor James Grattelo changed his hairstylist in 1996.

Now it is well known that I am a huge fan of the 1975 movie Jaws. I have seen the film more than 250 times. I belong to three different Facebook Jaws Fans groups. For my Christmas present last year, my wife remodeled our upstairs bathroom to be “Jaws-themed.”

I am a Jaws fanatic. My father took me to see the movie on its opening weekend in 1975. I was 11 years old, and I haven’t gone above my ankles in the ocean since. True story.

So, how do we connect Marc Lessard to perhaps one of the greatest films of all time?

In response to Councilor Mills’ rather laissez-faire attitude about public safety, Lessard pulled out the big guns and decided to use the threat of not one, but of three great-white sharks near Biddeford’s beaches as an analogy for being pro-active when it comes to public safety.

Not just any sharks, mind you. But Great White sharks, Carcharodon carcharias, for you amateurs out there.

“Imagine if we knew that there were three great white sharks just off the shores of our beaches,” Lessard said. “Would we wait for a swimmer to be attacked before we closed the beach?”

Peter Benchley, the man who wrote the novel Jaws, which became one of the highest grossing films of all time, has said in recent years that he regretted writing the book because of how it generated such negative public perceptions about sharks, including the merciless and often illegal hunting of the species.

Look, you can feel bad for the sharks all you want, but Lessard is right. Those beaches should be closed.

In all seriousness, another very compelling reason to keep dogs on leashes in Clifford Park is the potential impact to other critters that live in what is widely considered to be a complex and thriving vernal pool habitat. Free-ranging dogs and these critters don’t mix well.

I get that people love their dogs and want to spend time recreating with them. I am a dog owner, but I am also keenly aware that not everyone loves my dog. Not everyone feels safe having a dog walk up to them in order to smell their genitals.

Clifford Park is a public park, not a dog park. Those beautiful trails are there for the benefit of everyone, including seniors, young children and even people who don’t own dogs.

My dog, Sasha, a Black Labrador, is very gentle and somewhat submissive. I have had two experiences in which other dogs (unleashed) pinned her to the ground with gnarling teeth bared.

If Bobby Mills wants to play the part of Amity Mayor Larry Vaughan, who said “those beaches will be open.” Well, so be it.

But if you’ve seen the movie Jaws you know that Amity’s Mayor was dead wrong, even if his kids were “on that beach, too.”

On Tuesday, Councilor Lessard played the part of Matt Hooper from the Oceanographic Institute on the mainland. “I think you’re going to ignore this particular problem until it jumps up and bites you in the ass.”

Hooper drives the boat, chief. And Lessard is right. Your right to swing your arms stops at my nose.

_____

My wife Laura says that Marc Lessard is more like Chief Martin Brody than Matt Hooper. You see, this is what happens in the case of an amateur trying to inject her opinion in a newspaper column.

Lessard has city hands. He’s been counting money his whole life. “That’s billions with a ‘B,’ boys” (Inside joke that only a few longtime observers of Biddeford politics will understand.)

Anyway, it’s only an island if you look at it from the water.

Originally published in Saco Bay News