MEDICINE PARK – The Medicine Park Economic Development Authority will ask the town’s Board of Trustees to encourage businesses to notify officials about upcoming events, which will help officials plan security coverage and traffic control.
The authority voted March 13 to make the recommendation to the trustees, who may consider it at their March 20 meeting.
The vote came after a lengthy discussion of traffic control during the town’s festivals.
The Medicine Park Police Department provides security and traffic control for town-sponsored events and can close parking lot entrances to keep people from driving out of the lot and into the crowd, said Police Chief Tom Crawford. However, he said, the town does not provide security or traffic control for private events.
“If it’s a private event, it’s up to them to pr ovide the people to control that,” Crawford said.
Noel Alsbrook, who serves on the authority, said the town could begin requiring parking lot owners to seek permission to close that section of road during private events.
“We could have a system where they would request a road closure permit,” he said. “Where we could – even though it’s a private event – say, ‘We’re shutting this part of the road off. You cannot come out of that parking lot into it during a private event.’” Crawford said people could request a road-closure permit for their event, but they would still have to cover the cost of pr oviding security and traffic control.
“If I’m limited on manpower, they’re going to have to subsidize that,” he said. Event permits The conversation about traffic control led to a dis cussion of whether MPEDA should require people who want to host a pri vate event on public property to obtain an events permit.
“If you’re going to use city property – or MPEDA property, or whatever you want to call it – ma ybe you might want to look into requiring a permit for that kind of thing,” said Medicine Park Volunteer Fire Department David McCoy. “The reason being so we’ll know – the police and the fire departments will know – so w e can put our guys available.”
Town Clerk KaLee McMahan said a rule r equiring people who are hosting private events to give officials 30 days’ notice is already on the books, but the rule has not been enforced.
“We weren’t even requiring money or anything,” she said. “Just let us know.”
Police Chief Crawford said he needs to know at le ast 30 days ahead of time if b usinesses are planning to host an event that will draw a crowd, such as a bike rally or a fundraiser.
“What we run into constantly is these businesses won’t let us know, and then last minute, ‘Hey, we’ve got this going on this weekend,’” he said. “And now we’re struggling to get coverage.”
Crawford said if people had to obtain an event permit at least 30 days in advance, town off icials and the police department would know that they need to arrange coverage for that day.
The authority’s chairman, Matt Latham, suggested sending every business permit holder a letter reminding them to notify officials of any upcoming events.
“That way, nobody can say they didn’t know about it,” he said.