COVID-19 has put the kibosh on most city events in Golden for the time being — but that hasn’t stopped the city from considering what the future of events could look like.
On Oct. 15, the city council held a discussion at which it determined it is time to rethink portions of the city’s policy for determining what events can be held in the city — four years after significant changes were last made to the policy.
“I think we’ve done a great job but there’s some definite room for improvement going forward,” said councilman Casey Brown.
Brown’s comment was echoed by most of the council who expressed concerns about issues ranging from the over-commercialization of some downtown events to their being too many event-related street closures downtown streets.
Overall a prevailing sentiment seemed to be that the city is allowing too many events that do not benefit — or even negatively affect — both residents and downtown businesses.
Councilman Bill Fisher said he has heard from residents who feel downtown events have grown too large and there is no longer a need to hold so many events.
“It’s been interesting to hear over the last six months people saying we can actually come downtown again and don’t have to leave on July 4 and feel we are getting kicked out of our town while these events happen,” said Fisher. “I don’t think that makes for a successful event.”
Many of the concerns stemmed from whether the city needed to allow as many events to close downtown streets as it currently does. In 2019, the city provided permits for nine events that closed Washington Avenue, including five with closures lasting more than four hours.
“With respect to Washington Avenue, my personal feeling is the only time we should only be closing it down is if we as a city have partnered with the event,” said councilman Rob Reed. “Buffalo Bill Days, Candlelight Walk, those are all things that are part of the heart and soul of our city and its important to close down for, but the truly commercial ones don’t seem like a reason to close down Washington Avenue unless the merchants down their think it drives business to them.
Another nexus of agreement seemed to be the council’s feeling that the city has been too tentative to decline to allow certain events to be held again after they have proven to not fit with the city and its goals for events.
“I would definitely like to be able to say no sometimes and I think that is appropriate,” Brown said. “And I also think its appropriate to say `you had a chance and we are not interested in having you back and I would love for the policy to be able to get us there somehow.’”
Brown suggested possible ways to manage that would be for the city to recommit to having a citizen committee review events and whether they are a fit with the city’s goals.
One annual event that was repeatedly called out was the MOPAR Block Party, held in conjunction with the Dodge Mile Hi Nationals racing event held at Bandimere Speedway (both the Nationals and the block party did not take place this year due to COVID-19).
“I do want to put a stick in the spokes on the expectations that folks can come back, in particular those folks that have shown disdain for public health orders and a propensity to shut down the streets because they were mad about those orders,” said Reed in a reference to Bandimere Speedway, which organized a protest that closed down a portion of Washington Avenue in July.
Mayor Laura Weinberg also suggested that perhaps the city no longer needs to have so many events downtown the way it once did when it was a less active place. She also said that the city could benefit from limiting events in the summer and downtown in order to encourage events to be held in other locations and in months when the city sees less tourist traffic.
At the end of the discussion, the council expressed support for having city staff to make changes to the policy that included Weinberg’s ideas, like spreading both the dates and locations of events out more, and possibly limiting the total number of allowed events.
Deputy City Manager Carly Lorentz said city staff will bring a proposal for changes to the policy to the council at an upcoming meeting.
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October 21, 2020 at 12:51AM
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Summertime, and the event planning isn't that easy - Golden Transcript
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