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Lexington City Council is planning to review the city’s policy regarding fees for street closures for events within the city.
The review was prompted by an event that came before Council for approval at its meeting last Thursday as part of the meeting’s consent agenda.
Most street closure requests are reviewed by city staff and brought forward to Council with a recommendation to either approve or deny. Most events come to Council with a recommendation to approve and are part of the consent agenda for the meeting, meaning Council does not discuss each request individually but votes on them collectively.
If Council feels an item on the consent agenda warrants further discussion, it is removed from the consent agenda and considered separately.
The consent agenda at the Sept. 7 meeting had eight requests for street closures, seven of which were recommended for approval, but for the eighth event, a request by Randi Scott of Heritage Hall for street closures to host a Walk to End Alzheimer’s on Saturday, Sept. 30, the recommendation of the city manager was to deny the request. That item was removed from the consent agenda for further discussion by Council.
The route for the walk starts at Heritage Hall on Houston Street, turns left onto Taylor Street, then right onto Wallace Street, right onto South Main Street and then right onto Houston Street, ending back at Heritage Hall.
Scott requested closing those streets during the event, and was informed that there would be a $246 fee for the street closures to compensate the Lexington Police Department officers who would be assisting with the road blocks. Scott and the other event organizers opted not to pay and it was suggested that they could still host the event without closing the streets as long as they remained on the sidewalks and obeyed traffic signals at intersections. City Manager Jim Halasz informed Council that, should Council deny the request for street closures, Scott planned to hold the event that way.
The recommendation to deny largely came from the organizers of the event not wanting to pay the fee, Halasz noted.
“We’ve had those conversations for new events because of the cost and overtime to the police in this issue, but also to public works and other services, that if they’re not going to pay, then we recommend that the city not fund these private events,” he said.
He also referred to past conversations that City Council had had on the issue of the cost to the city of street closures over the past two years and that there was a policy that any new events (events that hadn’t been held prior to this year) would be charged for closing streets. For older events, the city covers the costs.
Council member David Sigler asked if this policy was noted anywhere on the application for events or on the city’s website, and Halasz said it was not. Sigler then advocated for adding a notice on the application that there could be a fee and perhaps having a written policy for these events.
“I agree, if people want to throw a party and close a street down so they can have a cookout and have a band in the middle of the street … I think they should be charged for that, if it’s a private party and it’s not open to the public,” he said. “I’m all for charging for certain services of LPD and public works. Heck, we’ve got an event Thanksgiving morning that could require five or 10 police officers to be on duty on a holiday for 500 or more runners. Those are not insignificant costs, not just monetarily, but to the lives of our police officers. I believe we should recoup some cost, I just think we should push it over the goal line of having a policy, and put it on the permit request so that we’re not having the city manager recommend that they pay. I think it’s our failing and we need to get that done with a policy.”
Council member Leslie Straughan noted that other new events had been charged for street closures and that there hadn’t been issues with it. She also advocated for denying Scott’s event.
“I would agree that we should put it on the application from now on,” she said, “[but] we have already charged other people for closing a street and it wasn’t on the application, and we’ve had this discussion at least twice in Council meetings, so I have no problems with denying this and explaining to them what the situation is and that they do have options as far as choosing a different path. I think we should either charge them or deny it. I don’t see this as being a problem, but I do agree that we should put it on the application that there may be a fee charged for street closures.”
Council member Nicholas Betts argued that, since the applicant wasn’t aware of the potential charge, that the event should be approved, and that the city should cover the $246 for the street closures. He also noted that the organizers of the Alzheimer’s Walk indicated to the city that they anticipate the event having 100 attendees, which he pointed out could result in potential traffic issues at intersections.
Sigler recalled an event “a few years ago” where the application to close streets was denied and organizers opted to hold the event on the sidewalks, but didn’t obey traffic signals which “snarled” traffic in the city.
Sigler initially moved to approve Scott’s application and to begin the process of looking into creating a written policy regarding street closures for events if one did not already exist, but later separated the two motions. The motion on the event passed 5-1, with Straughan casting the dissenting vote.
“I think having it on the application that there is a cost associated is sufficient, but I feel like we’ve already put this policy in place and this is not anything new and I have no problems with denying it. I’m sorry to them, but I feel like they still have other options to where they can still hold their event and not pay if that’s the issue,” she said.
After that vote, Mayor Frank Friedman directed city staff to review records for policies regarding street closures for events and to report back to Council at a future meeting.
