Agenda Packets - 2009/06/22 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Item No. 07J Type of Business: CB Date: June 22, 2009 City Administrator Review _______ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: James Ericson, Clerk-Administrator Item Title/Subject: Second Reading and Adoption of Ordinance 820, an Ordinance Revising Chapter 611 of the City Code Pertaining to Outdoor Special Events Background: On September 22, 2008, the Mounds View City Council adopted Ordinance 808 creating a new Chapter 611 of the City Code which established Outdoor Special Event provisions. The intended purpose of adding the provision was to promote the health, safety, and welfare of all residents and visitors of the City by ensuring that special events do not create disturbances, become nuisances, threaten life, health and property, and disrupt traffic or damage private or public property. Discussion: Subsequent to the adoption of Ordinance 808, staff determined that the time and effort needed to implement and manage the requirements of the new regulations would be immense. Further, staff became aware of various deficiencies in the ordinance which would necessitate multiple amendments to further clarify the scope and intent of the provisions. Staff also received substantial, less than positive, feedback from organizations and property owners who would be subjected to the five page application and the fees associated with an outdoor event. It became clear that while the intent of the outdoor event chapter was worthy, the burden to staff and affected property owners exceeded any anticipated benefit. The Council discussed the provisions of Chapter 611 at their meetings on April 13, April 27 and again on May 4, 2009. While staff had originally brought forward a version of Ordinance 820 that would amend the Chapter, after the discussion and direction of the Council at their May 4th work session, the ordinance was revised to simply strike the Chapter from the City Code, acknowledging that many of the regulations contained within Chapter 611 (such as noise, litter, nuisance, etc) are already addressed elsewhere in the Code. Despite differences of opinion regarding the deletion of the outdoor special event provisions, the Council approved the first reading of the revised ordinance on May 26th. There seemed to be some interest in retaining some of the outdoor special event provisions, however staff indicated it would be cleaner to start from “scratch” rather than attempting to modify the existing language. If the Council would like some of the soon to be deleted provisions to survive in a new ordinance, perhaps the issue could be scheduled for a work session discussion.