May 16. By Dave Yochum. On Monday night, Mecklenburg County Park Director Jim Garges let the Town Board know there are 50 new parking spaces, new signs and surveillance cameras wired directly to the Police Station as well as a variety of new procedures at Ramsey Creek Park.

Whether Nantz Road residents will be happy when the only public beach in Mecklenburg County opens this Saturday remains to be seen.

The new beach, opened to all just before Memorial Day last year, caused a brouhaha down Nantz Road where lakefront residents were accustomed to peace and quiet.

New training for park staff starts today; twice-weekly water testing begins Wednesday.

“Inappropriate traffic remains a problem in the neighborhood,” said Commissioner Mike Miltich, who lives near the park.

Commissioner Dave Gilroy said there is still the “big picture problem of untenable volumes.” Garges said the park board is looking at removing fees at nearby Jetton Park, which will likely become more of a reliever for Ramsey Creek.

Ramsey Creek is the only public beach on Lake Norman for Mecklenburg County. Attendance, which approached 70,000 last year, actually declined as the summer wore on.

But Lee Fleming, who has lived next to the park on Nantz Road for 20 years, said the principal issue around Ramsey Creek beach operations is the bus traffic.

“These are full-scale, full-size CATS buses on a half-mile stretch of an old two-lane road, causing obscene noise,” Fleming said, explaining that the buses are causing the road to deteriorate.