Ulysses Town Board puts off event law decision to allow more public comment - 14850
At the end of the lively public hearing period of Tuesday night’s Town of Ulysses Town Board meeting, Town Supervisor Katelin Olson said she would propose another public hearing on the subject of a proposed local law that would amend the town’s Special Events Law. As written, the amendment could hamper the plans of GrassRoots Festival organizers as well as others in the community who wanted to plan special events.
Related: Public hearing Tuesday on event law change that could affect GrassRoots Festival
Olson’s suggestion came after the Board apologized to community members that the location of tonight’s in-person meeting had not been published, and a Zoom link published for the last three weeks had been for the wrong meeting. Town Clerk Carissa Parlato provided a corrected Zoom link to 14850 Today, and updated it on the town web site, about 20 minutes into Tuesday’s meeting.
“No more than one special event permit per calendar year shall be issued to the same operator or for the same property,” the proposal states. “Any applications for special event permits in excess of this limit must be made to the Town Board of the Town of Ulysses.” The current law allows up to four special event permits to be issued per operator or per property each calendar year.
Special events may be up to five days in duration, which means GrassRoots organizers couldn’t consider the GrassRoots Culture Camp and the festival itself to be a single event for permit purposes, and under the new law, offering camping and parking at the Across the Way site for both would require organizers to appeal to the Town Board for an exemption, rather than just seeking a routine event permit for each. Last year’s series of GrassRoots-organized concert weekends needed routine permit applications, but also would have required appeals to the Town Board under the new proposal.
Tuesday’s public hearing brought several speakers to the meeting, both in person and online, asking questions and offering comment on the proposal and its possible impacts. Supervisor Olson stressed that the special events law only applies to events that “will result in traffic generation of more than 50 vehicles” and either will be longer than eight hours, or will involve overnight camping on property that isn’t already approved for overnight camping. Non-commercial gatherings at single family residences, and events held on commercial properties with sufficient parking for such gatherings, don’t need special event permits.
Some expressed concern that GrassRoots would have to seek an exemption from the Town Board in order to use its “Across the Way” property acquired several years ago for camping and parking for multiple events in one year even though, according to Jordan Puryear, the Town of Ulysses zoning enforcement officer had reassured the group before the property purchase that their intended use was fine.
Ulysses resident Krys Cail asked whether a planned memorial event for Heather Dunbar, a fixture of the area music scene who passed away this winter, would require organizers to seek an exemption if it weren’t the only event planned for that property this year.
A resident of Falls Road, a county road that borders the GrassRoots Across the Way property, told board members he had purchased his property and moved from the Town of Enfield several years ago knowing that he would be living in an area zoned for residential use, and was disappointed that a nearby property was suddenly being used the last few years as a large campground and busy parking lot multiple weekends each summer.
Other speakers asked whether the Town Board would establish criteria by which permission for a special event beyond the one allowed per year would be granted or denied, wondered whether politics would play a role if the Board were asked to decide on special events, and expressed support for the economic and tourism benefits that events brought to the region.
Much less controversial is the proposed change to the special event law that would require 30 days notice, rather than five days, for a permit application. Town Clerk Carissa Parlato told 14850 Today on Tuesday that five days “is just not enough time for the code officer to approve events where noise, traffic, safety, health dept. approval, etc. must be considered.”
The Town of Ulysses hasn’t yet said when the next opportunity for public discussion of the topic will be, but the Town Board next meets on Tuesday, April 26th.
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source: https://www.14850.com/041225117-ulysses-board-2204/
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