By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
ssoldan@mihomepaper.com
Ortonville — The Village of Ortonville council voiced their frustrations over the current special event permit following four event permit approvals at the regular meeting on Monday night.
Currently, the special event permit, which was adopted in October of last year, requires event planners to submit their permit 60 days or more prior to the event. None of the four permits from Monday night adhered to that rule.
“I’m hoping that when they do come in this late that those in the office say ‘we have new procedures, and in there it says it has to be 60 days’,” said Council Member Kay Green. “I’m not going to say we can’t have the event, we just need to be reminding them of the rules.”
The special event permit packet is 11 pages long, and the cover page has the 60-day requirement on it.
“It’s just kind of looking bad in a sense for us to approve permits that aren’t in 60 days,” said Council Member Ashley Mould.
All of the events approved, including Witches Night Out, the Homecoming Parade, the Harvey-Swanson Halloween parade and trick-or-treating in Ortonville, are annual events.
“I just have an overall opinion that we have a one-size-fits-all permit here,” said Village President Ken Quisenberry. “We know when Halloween is, we know when these other things are occurring. We shouldn’t dish out punishment, but we want to try to encourage people that are going to do a permit to do it timely.”
Other members of the council asked that permits be completely filled out and have all the proper documentation, such as insurance paperwork.
“I do think it also looks bad when we’re approving permits that aren’t completely filled out,” said Council Member Larry Hayden.
The full permit and all the requirements can be found on the village website.