Mary Ferdon
Richardson
Columbus city staff are looking at ways to improve coordination, security and planning around events held on city property.
City engineering technician Aimee Morris and Skylar Berry with the Columbus Police Department discussed a new city event policy at the Columbus Board of Works. It is their hope that, after taking the week to review the draft document, the board will be ready to vote on its approval today.
Morris said the main piece of the proposed policy is a planning guide that explains how the city will review events. Additionally, event applications would be divided into four types — downtown events; Mill Race Park events; runs, walks or rides; and events held on any other city property. The policy also includes a more in-depth form for event safety and security plans.
Once an event organizer applies, the details of their application and proposed security plan would be reviewed by the city’s new Community Events Review Committee. The committee would then make a recommendation to the Board of Works about whether or not to allow the event. For gatherings at Mill Race Park, the committee would send recommendations to the Columbus Parks Board.
After an event takes place, the committee would then review how it went and how it could be improved in the future, said CPD Chief Michael Richardson.
Morris noted that the draft policy includes a change to area classified as downtown for event planning purposes. If approved, it make the north-south boundaries of this area First Street to Eighth Street and push the eastern boundary back from Franklin Street to Lafayette Avenue. The western boundary is Jackson Street.
The city’s original event policy was put into place in 2018 and updated in 2019, Morris said.
“Really, since ‘19, everything’s been the Downtown Columbus Special Event Policy,” she said. “So fast-forward to 2022, last year, there were at least 15 individual events, big and little, that came through engineering. And that’s just engineering in that process; that’s not other special use of right of ways. That’s not Mill Race Park. That’s not all other events throughout the city. Those were just downtown. So at the end of last year, a couple hiccups happened.”
As a result, Richardson thought that it would be good if all events could come through one place for review by the relevant city staff.
“Chief Richardson got kind of everybody together on a bunch of different departments so that we could talk about events before they happened,” said Berry. “And kind of as it progressed, we talked about the policy that we already had in place for the downtown events. We thought that was a great starting point to jump off to some other events so that we can all be on the same page.”
He added that, from a security standpoint, CPD wants to stay in the loop about who event organizers are, what the event’s set-up will look like and who to contact if something goes wrong. They also want to ensure that organizers have contacts with the CPD and other city departments.
With this in mind, the city has formed the Community Events Review Committee, said Morris. The group includes officials from fire, police, emergency management, parks, public works, community development and engineering.
When asked if the proposed policy would add any burdens for organizers, Berry said that they may be some more planning work on the front end.
“We also have kind of a 250-person threshold,” he said. “Under that, it’s not quite as stringent. It’s mostly just getting a good plan in place for what your safety and security is so that we’re all on the same page and are aware of it.”
“Part of it’s being driven by security concerns,” said City Director of Administration and Community Development Mary Ferdon. “As we watched around the country, there’s a number of festivals, parades, you name it, right? Stuff happens. And so this gives us the chance to review it. And I say ‘us’, it gives them a chance to review it from a security standpoint.”
She said that the goal of the committee will be to identify what could go wrong at an event and figure out how to prevent those mishaps.
Board of Works member John Pickett said that he hopes the committee will go about its work in a way that encourages people to hold events, rather than discouraging them. Pickett is a supporter of Exhibit Columbus and co-organizer of its preview party, which is held in Mill Race Park.
Morris replied that since organizers are the one liable if something adverse occurs, these measures would protect both them and the city. While there would be some new steps for people to go through, she doesn’t believe there’s anything unreasonable in the new policy.
It’s important, in terms of “downtown activation,” to make sure that events are done well, said Ferdon.
“There’s so many people who don’t think through all their events,” Pickett agreed. “It takes a lot.”
“That’s exactly it,” said Morris. “People that don’t think through their events, we’re thinking it through for them.”
