by Kelsey Penrose
The Carson City Board of Supervisors discussed a policy for street closures and special event policies going into the new year.
Following discussions, the Board directed staff to prepare an ordinance that would require any special event road closure requests to come before the Board of Supervisors if they were not selected from a preapproved “menu.”
Street Closures
In 2022, 61 special event permits were issued with 24 requiring a street closure.
Of the 24 street closures, 5 closures were on Rice Street, which the city received numerous complaints in relation to.
Of the events, five were attended by over 1,000 people, including the Silver and Snowflakes Festival of Lights, the Nevada Day parade, the Great Western Steam Up, the Brewery Arts Center Levitt Concerts, Brewfest, and the Taste of Downtown.
Hope Sullivan, Community Development Director, provided the presentation of proposed changes to the board, which included policy changes on which entity would be allowed to approve street closures.
The proposed policy would make it so that Public Works would have the ability to approve the closure of only five street sections for special events, which would be known as the “Menu” with static pricing by location:
- The 3rd Street Parking Lot
- Carson Street from Fifth to Robinson
- Curry Street from Second to Fourth
- Curry Street from Musser to Telegraph
- Telegraph from Carson to Curry
Those closures come with criteria for the events of attendance numbers, and have limitations on which portions may be closed.
Any special events outside the previous list are proposed to only be approved by the Board of Supervisors.
Sullivan said that the current policy in use is flawed, which caused many complaints from business owners and residents who were not happy with street closures.
“Right now, there is no policy in place, so Public Works feels as if they can’t say no,” Sullivan said. “Also—I’m sure you’ve received the visits and emails and phone calls—there have been situations where both residents and businesses get really frustrated because the road is suddenly closed in front of their business, and they say ‘enough is enough’.”
The issue currently, Sullivan said, is there is a policy in place stating that there needs to be notice given to all businesses and residences affected by a street closure.
However, the problem the city has discovered is that the practice is flawed.
Sullivan said that, for example, the city requires a verification of notice from nearby businesses and residents who might be affected.
However, the city might not be aware that a particular address contains multiple tenants or residents who did not agree to the closure, and have no knowledge of it until their businesses or homes are affected.
In addition, the person who is signing may not actually be authorized to sign the notice, as business owners have complained.
Numerous conflicts and complaints seem to have arisen from a single business: Tap @ Rice Street (a bar which has since gone out of business and is under new ownership) which received authorization to close Rice Street from Public Works five times in 2022.
One individual stated that she was forced to move from her home on Rice Street due to noise coming from the bar along with multiple street closures that neighboring businesses and residents did not approve of.
“Until last month, I lived two houses away from The Tap Shack on Rice Street,” former resident Noni Hayes wrote. “Crappy loud amplified music was forced on me several times a week. In Las Vegas and Reno — two cities with noise ordinances — that identical music would have exceeded the legal permitted levels in those cities. I measured it.”
Hayes said that she spoke to the city and the mayor multiple times about the issue, and was told that it was the sheriff’s office who should take care of excessive noise.
“That’s a horrible use of law officers, and what should have been protecting me was good zoning practice,” Hayes said.
Hayes went on to say that the new owners of the Tap Shack are excited about having closed street events, which she believes is unfair to residents.
“The residents are good neighbors. The tattoo parlor is a good neighbor. The historical society is a good neighbor.”
Hayes said that she chose to move out of Carson City after, she said, the city failed to create a livable city for residents by failing to protect them from excessive noise and street closures.
The Board held a lengthy discussion on what direction staff should be given regarding the road closure policies. Suggestions included making every event organizer gain board approval; allowing each residence or business in town a single approved road closure; requiring organizers to receive permission from neighbors for a closure, and more.
Mayor Lori Bagwell suggested that instead of a letter of acknowledgement, that organizers who wish to get permission for a road closure should be required to get permission from, as opposed to give notice to, all affected residences and businesses.
Supervisor Stacey Giomi argued that would be setting people up for conflicts.
“There are already conflicts happening,” Bagwell said. “Just look at Rice Street.”
Giomi said that the conflict is coming from repetitive closures, not the special events themselves.
“Maybe we say (each residence/business in an area) can have one street closure a year,” Giomi said. “Then, if you want to do repetitive street closures, you do have to come to us. That addresses those issues.”
Supervisor Maurice White said he would like to see language indicating what counts as a “special event” necessitating a road closure. In his purview, a memorial, a celebration of thirty years in business or something similar would count; a weekly cornhole tournament would not.
“What’s so special about a cornhole tournament?” White asked.
Director of Public Works Dan Stucky said that, in the case of allowing each business or residence one street closure would create an issue for Public Works.
“I just want to reiterate that our streets operation crews who are doing road way work all over the city, they’re using overtime to do these road closures,” Stucky said. “The plan with the menu is to streamline that process.”
Stucky also said that by placing the decision of street closures onto the board, rather than Public Works, it would alleviate the conflict Public Works deals with on having to decide whether or not a street closure should be allowed.
“It’s more than a Public Works decision,” Stucky said.
Sullivan said one way to fix the problem could be to send a notice to each person who held a special event street closure in 2022 stating if their event is not on the menu, they will need to come before the board as soon as possible to have their event and street closure approved.
“I just don’t want it to seem so bureaucratic,” Giomi said. “That we’re such an unfriendly community that (organizers) have to go through all this bureaucratic b.s. to (host an event). We’re just trying to find that balance.”
Following discussions, it was determined that Sullivan’s recommendation was the best approach: to send notices to events that had taken place in 2022 indicating there is now a menu option for the major Downtown streets, and any other street closures would need to come before the board for approval.
The Board said that they would also discuss creating categories so that city-sponsored or endorsed events, such as Taste of Downtown, the Nevada Day Parade, the tree lighting, etc., could be preapproved.
Electricity
For use in special events, it was agreed upon that special events will be able to use city electricity without charge so long as they request the usage of electricity with their event application, and meet with facilities ahead of time to determine where they can plug in and how much electricity they are able to safely use.
Sullivan recommended making electricity usage to special events “extraordinary and unusual” due to numerous issues with electricity usage which has caused city staff to work overtime for various events.
There have been numerous issues with special events needing electricity, such as at McFadden Plaza, only to learn electricity was not available.
“What will happen is, people are at McFadden on the weekend and I’ll get calls and the Mayor will get calls saying, ‘Wait, the lights aren’t working, or this isn’t working’ and it becomes a fire drill,” Sullivan said. “What we’d like to see is the use of electricity to be extraordinary and unusual with a fee associated with that.”
Sullivan said that this would create situations in which the city is on hand 48 hours before the special events take place to explain where electricity can be used and how much, so as to avoid dangerous electrical situations.
Electricity use fees would range from $250 – $500, or $1,500 for use on Carson Street.
“People don’t often think about electricity,” Sullivan said. “I can’t tell you how many times we received calls in 2022 from Public Works facilities who are going out at the last minute and they’re saying ‘How long have we known about this event?’ Well, we’ve known about the event, but (the organizers) didn’t think about electricity. This will force that conversation to happen.”
Giomi said he did not believe event organizers should be charged for electricity usage unless facilities personnel are having to work past their regular hours to set up for the event.
“I also don’t think we should charge them if they’re called out due to a fault of ours,” Giomi said. “If we get out there and someone forgets to turn the breaker on, then I don’t think we should be charging (organizers) for that.”
White disagreed, stating he believes event organizers should pay a fee since the duties associated with events are not within the realm of a Public Works employee’s usual job.
Giomi said he would prefer to provide equipment for events that would be plugged into the city’s system rather than event organizers to provide their own equipment as a money-saving measure.
“I don’t want anything to be detrimental to the system,” Giomi said.
Bagwell said there is a difference between community events such as the tree lighting or the Nevada Day Parade, versus a special event a business is organizing for profit.
“Maybe we need to isolate special events so we can separate them into different categories,” Giomi said. “But all of these events benefit our community, and I don’t have an issue with us supporting them as our contribution to the community.”
Trash, Toilets and Damages
Sullivan recommended changes to policy to include a statement in the application acknowledging that the event organizer, not the city, is responsible for any damage to city property and must demonstrate evidence of insurance coverage.
In addition, policy changes would make clear that event organizers must provide trash collection and toilets associated with their event, and establish the requirement for how many toilets are needed.
Health Permits
Health Permit policy changes were suggested, including a 48-hour time period for health permits to be issued prior to a special event, and a caveat that event organizers would be in charge of dealing with unauthorized vendors at their events.
The policy proposal stated that vendors of a special event must obtain health permits at least 48 hours prior to the event inquisition; no day-of event permits will be issued.
It also added that the event organizer is responsible for monitoring vendors so that only vendors approved for the event can set up within the event space; city staff will not remove vendors.
Mayor Bagwell disagreed with the change, stating is should not be up to event organizers to do the job of the Health Department. Since the Health Department is already on site, and they see a vendor selling food without a permit, the Health Department should be the entity to act on the violation.
These and other policy changes were suggested to the board to determine how and when special events should be handled within the city — and where responsibility falls for those events.
“The role of special events in the City has changed over the last few years with the opening of McFadden Plaza and the re-construction of Carson Street, Curry Street and the Third Street Parking lot,” Sullivan wrote. “The City has made infrastructure improvements to help facilitate special events in the downtown area. In helping facilitate these events, city staff has identified areas where it is unclear what is a city responsibility and what is an event organizer responsibility. The policies in this memo are intended to clearly state expectations so that both the event organizers and the city’s staff understand the Board’s expectations.”
If approved, the policies would be implemented and reviewed in 2023 so that they can be adjusted as the Board deems appropriate.
For the full list of policy changes, please click here.
