Local, county, state agencies working together on Christmas Lighting traffic plan

The Chelan County Sheriff’s Department, Washington State Patrol, Chelan County Fire District 3, Washington State Department of Transportation, Chelan County Public Works, the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce and the city of Leavenworth are actively reviewing Christmas Lighting and some of the traffic problems, high congestion, parking, etc.
“The Chelan County Sheriff’s Department and Fire District 3 are concerned about getting their people to and from emergency calls. How do you go about doing that? The other piece is WSDOT, their interest is moving traffic up and down Highway 2, making people move and responding to issues on the right of way,” said City Administrator Joel Walinski, at the March 13 city council study session.
At the last meeting on March 1, Walinski said the WSDOT, CCSO and State Patrol decided to put together a package for traffic control they would like to see implemented for Christmas Lighting.
Walinski said they’ve started to review the city’s special use permit, while it works well in some cases, it doesn’t work well in others. He said they need to be more specific and gather more information.
“I think, at the end of the day, the events and event organizers, should have more responsibility in addressing more repercussions of their event. That is traffic, parking and how those things are done,” Walinski said. “That doesn’t mean, for example, Autumn Leaf comes in every year with a big parade that blocks traffic. That doesn’t mean the city says, figure out everything on your own. The city does work with them, and at the end of the day, it is Autumn Leaf that is responsible making sure those things happen.”
The city does not have the tools in place in their special use permit process to move how they would like, he said. Walinski said they’ve asked their insurance provider, through the Association of Washington Small Cities,  to provide a recommendation, because they have experience on these things.  
“If I was going to recommend something, we can look at what we use currently and our code language. If you’ve read the template ordinance and see the information sheet and permit, there are a lot of gaps,” Walinski said. “If we look at the ordinance itself, probably where would start is with the ordinance itself. The ordinance the city uses was developed a long time ago. It has more to do with food booths, but it doesn’t cover a lot of other things.”
Walinski provided the council a template for that proposed ordinance. He said there is a lot of work that needs to be done, believing they might have something in the next couple weeks. The desire was to get the general okay from the council that is the direction to go.
“Put something in place that identifies this is important and number two, puts more of an approval process in place. That is probably the biggest thing I see. Our approval process, letting the Sheriff sign off, letting the Fire District sign off, having the city sign off and approving that,” Walinski said. “And anytime you have an approval process, you have an appeal process. This provides for an appeal process. It does put the authority back with the city in approving a variety of special events that go on.”
The application for some of the smaller events could be streamlined, he said, because not every single event is going to have a parking or traffic plan. For example, the criterium is going to be, if you block off streets, you are going to need a traffic plan.
Last year, the Accordion Festival told the city they wanted a parade of 200 people playing their accordion.
“Not a big deal, but having them think about the traffic control for their three block parade. They came up with a plan and said, can we do this? Check, check, check...it came out relatively well,” Walinski said. “Those are the kids of things the application does and the processing on improving the process, allows us to ask some of those questions and put in more a general process so we can keep better control.”
Mayor Cheri Kelley Farivar said very often a new festival like Accordion Fest thought this parade was a great idea. Then, they come asking this city to do all these things.
“That puts the onus on the city without any real discussion with the organizer. Okay, yes, Accordion Fest requires this, this and this and you have process to go through. Not saying it shouldn’t happen, it should,” Farivar said. “Those are great little festivals. Some festivals won’t rise the level of having any traffic control or any parking issues.”
This won’t be just Christmas Lighting we’re talking about, she said.
“Christmas Lighting is our biggest festival and it has taken 50 years to get to the level it is. We’re not just going to put this back on the chamber and say, you have to do all this stuff. This is going to be a process of several years, getting all of these things in order,” Farivar said.
Councilwoman Mia Bretz asked if the city would implement changes to the permit process gradually. Farivar said, for an operation the size of Christmas Lighting, only a few things can be done.
Walinski said he would use Oktoberfest as an example.
“As we watched Oktoberfest grow, we put more things in the special use permit to have them address things. We actually put some parameters out there, like their tents,” Walinski said. “There were four or five places where it didn’t meet code requirements, but the idea was, within four or five years, they were going to change over their process. That allowed us to mitigate. We know you are on a pathway to get there.”
To go from not a whole lot of control to a full length approval process is a big step for event organizers, but also a big step for the city, Walinski said. He felt they need time to do that. Councilman Elmer Larsen was worried about the wording in the proposed ordinance, but Walinski told him it was just an example and would likely be changed.
Bretz said this was an enormous issue, big, big.
“It affects our biggest festivals that go on and it affects our community. I think the Adventure Park has gotten such a bad rap in the community is because they don’t feel taken care of during our festivals,” Bretz said. “I think if they felt, visitors coming into town were a part of our community, a part of our experience and was managed well, I don’t think we would be hearing the same resistance that we’re hearing. I think we’re hearing that because, overall, there is discontent.”
Bretz said she felt this should be a big, community process where people could voice their concerns.
“There are so many players here. It’s layered and complicated, we’re going to come up with solutions not everybody is happy with,” Bretz said. “Maybe if we did this as a really big process you could get to a better sense of what your rules came be. I think this is way overdue. That is why we are where we are with the frustration level in the community. This hasn’t been looked at and our events have grown so much.”
Councilwoman Margaret Neighbors said there needs to be a huge education piece up front. She felt not many people know what a special use permit is and how it impacts the festivals.
“Why are we talking about this when it just seems like more bureaucratic nonsense? This can change things but it’s going to take a huge effort from staff and from us to let people know why we’re doing this, why we’re spending the time on this,” Neighbors said.
Farivar said she was only looking for consensus the city needs to move in this direction. She favored giving it to Walinski, letting him parse this and start getting a process in place.
“This is something that is going to be given to you several times in several iterations. I don’t feel at this point to involve a big city effort. Maybe toward the end of the process, when we get ready to say, this is what we’re moving forward on. This is what the city has done the past several months. Did we miss anything?,” Farivar said.
I totally disagree, Bretz said, feeling people will feel the city is doing the work and making decisions without their input.
“They could show up or get elected. However, to have a big public meeting and hear everybody’s concerns is maybe appropriate toward the end of what we actually do. We don’t need their approval until we cull this out and narrow in on what is important,” Farivar said.
Bretz said many of things being talked about on social media and in coffee shops are wrong. She felt the city needed to reach out and dialog back and forth. This is an issue because people are frustrated, Bretz aid.
“I don’t think people are frustrated by special use permits. They are frustrated with traffic and congestion,” Farivar said.
Christmas Lighting and Oktoberfest are 20 percent of our lives, Bretz said.
“And 80 percent of our complaints. I think there is probably some kind of solution. I agree with the mayor. If we are bringing something to the community, we have to have something for them to comment on,” said Councilman Jason Lundgren. “You don’t just say, here’s a problem, what does everybody want to do about it? I also agree with Mia. Public misinformation is one of our biggest enemies. With the Adventure Park, people think the city is building this thing and have approved the process. The burden falls upon us to shed light.
“Despite comments, thumbs up, thumbs down, angry faces...despite all that, the public is better informed by Joel spending an hour putting a post up. Mia is right, the special use permit is one of the only vehicles we have to help maintain some semblance and tell the community we’re not asleep at the wheel.”
The public won’t like it if it is already said and done when you show it to them, Councilwoman Sharon Waters said.
“This is a prime example of nobody knowing the facts, nobody knowing what is happening. They think the city is pulling one over on them or that company is pulling one over on them. If we don’t invite people in the door and open it, they don’t come in,” Waters said.
“There is so much angst. People don’t trust the city. I really feel like there’s some community building that needs to happen,” Bretz said.
Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com