An advisory board on Thursday supported the concept of admission-based events in city parks, but said a policy on that subject proposed by the city’s parks officials needed to be tightened further.
Denver’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board also instructed city officials to conduct a stronger effort at soliciting input from the public on the concept.
The issue has generated so much controversy that one advisory board member, Scott Gillmore, said the council member who appointed him to the board, Michael Hancock, believes it should go on a citywide ballot for a vote of the public.
The board rejected that approach and instead instructed parks officials to keep revising the policy to try to come up with something more limited. The board acted after nearly two years of debate on the concept. It was the second time the board had asked the city’s parks officials to revise the proposal.
Chantal Unfug, a senior adviser in the city’s parks and recreation department, expressed exasperation at the prospect of further revisions. She asked whether board members needed to review for a second time an e-mail she had forwarded to them detailing the numerous types of public outreach she said the city already had done.
The issue of whether the city should allow ticketed events in 14 city parks has generated controversy, with numerous residents expressing opposition.
Critics say they fear the plan would create excessive traffic in their neighborhoods and could end up harming the parks.
Parks officials say they think the events would attract more people to the parks and would also become a money maker for the city. They also say the practice is common in cities across the nation, including in Colorado.
“I would rather err on the side of being too restrictive at first,” said board member, Edward Done, who said he supported admission-based events in general.
The policy the board rejected would have allowed admission-based events in 14 city parks. In most of those parks, only one such ticketed event attracting in excess of 350 patrons would be permitted within 12 days, according to the proposal.
Another board member, Sharon Elfenbein, said she was strongly opposed to asking voters to vote in a citywide ballot on the issue.
She said she believed citywide ballots should be reserved for crucial issues, a comment that prompted groans and howls of derision from those in the audience who are adamantly opposed to allowing ticketed events in city parks.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
