By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
Staff Writer
Ortonville — During the regular meeting on Aug. 28, the Ortonville Village Council decided to postpone approving the new special event permit application.
“As we know, we’ve been kind of working on this since mid-late spring,” said Village President Ken Quisenberry. “It’s certainly a dramatic improvement over what we used to do, and I think it’s still able to be flexible that we can work around things if we absolutely need to. The idea is to not prevent events from happening, it’s just to assist us in making those events happen.”
The new draft packet was brought to council for approval, but ultimately postponed due to questions on fees and clarifications.
As it was worded, the draft permit mentioned that for-profit organizations wishing to have events would be required to pay for services such as DPW and police, but it did not mention fees for non-profit organizations. It also stated 501-c3 organizations, but did not mention other non-profit organizations with different tax classifications.
“There’s a lot of other categories for non-profits other than 501-c3,” said council member Larry Hayden.
The previous application was one page long, and the council decided to have it redone in May. The current draft is 11 pages long. It currently does not include a cost sheet, but does include spots for necessary services to estimate their costs based on the event.
“I wanted something to be put in here for the cost range,” said Melanie Nivelt, council member. “I think they should see the costs up front, because maybe they wouldn’t want to go through the process if it’s too expensive for their organization.”
The costs that any organization could incur could include police services, fire department services, DPW services or more depending on the needs of the event.
“We wanted to not specifically name them (the costs) because they can change at a moment’s notice,” said Quisenberry. “I just feel this is not ready for prime time.”
The event application packet will come back to the council for their September meeting.
“It speaks to how the cost is estimated, it’s based on the departmental routing form in the back, so it shows as every department approves, we can say DPW is going to need X amount of time, the estimated cost is this. For the sheriff’s department, fire department, etc.,” said Ryan Madis, village manager. “That would come after they go through the process with the review that’s outlined in the packet.”