City Council Minutes 2015 07 14 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Meeting Minutes July 14, 2015 Page 18 of 26 what events may or may not compete with other events. Currently, any applicant who submits a complete application and can meet the conditions placed on the event is permitted. The following events do get priority booking of facilities: City events; the Downtown Business Association's Street Faire; Chamber of Commerce's Taste of Louisville and Pints in the Park, and the Farmer's Market. Fees: Council asked staff if we charge a lower rate for non - profit event permits compared to for profit events. Staff does not. Past experience has been that many organizations will bring on board a non - profit 501 c3 simply to use their name to apply for the permit. This has been a frequent case with liquor permits as State law requires Special Event Liquor Permits only be given to a non - profit. When this happens, staff works with the applicant on permitting issues only to find the applicant is really in name only and the group actually working the event is someone else. This has created communication problems with some events and leads to a problem with who is agreeing to conditions on a permit and who is providing insurance for the event. The DBA and the Chamber are not charged fees for their special event permits as the City is a co- sponsor of their events either directly with funding or indirectly with in kind donations of City staff time and equipment. Currently the fee is $200, and it does not cover the staff time involved in reviewing and approving a permit. At this time staff is considering doubling the fee to $400 for 2016. Summary: Staff does not think it is appropriate for permits to be reviewed to determine if an event competes with another event in town. As these are public spaces, anyone who applies and can meet the City's permitting criteria should be allowed to use the space. If criteria are needed to limit events, it would have to be very specific to enable staff to implement them on a case -by -case basis. COUNCIL COMMENT Council member Loo asked if there were any legal aspects to limiting events. City Attomey Light explained in order to avoid legal problems the process must be transparent and equitable. Also a special event permit should not be denied for an improper reason.. He stated the special event permit should allocate the resources in an equitable way. He stated Council may want to direct staff to define a set of criteria to manage the calendar. Council member Leh asked if there were would be a problem in adding criteria requiring a positive impact on Louisville. City Attorney Light explained such criteria would require a set of evaluation points Mayor Muckle stated the Council will review the special events permitting process this year, but he did not anticipate it would change any events this fall.