KINGWOOD — With another music festival likely to be held at Marvin’s Mountaintop at the end of June, Preston County officials met to discuss making changes to the county’s mass gathering ordinance.
“Do you want to change anything and how do you want to change it so we can get it to legal and have a little bit of time to look at that all?” asked Kathy Mace, county administrator.
The commission first discussed changing the ordinance in October as part of an after action review for Resonance, a music festival, which was held in September. At that meeting, the organizer of Resonance said the festival would not return because of what he called police harassment.
One of the major topics of discussion is how to define a mass gathering in the ordinance. The ordinance kicks in if the event has 3,000 attendees, over multiple days and if they’re camping.
There was a consensus that 3,000 was too large of a number and something in the 500-1,000 range might be more reasonable. Discussion was also held about possibly having different tiers of requirements. For example, notification about an event with 250 people but not having to pay a fee until there is a higher number of attendees.
Yonderville, the festival looking to come to Preston County in June, anticipates a total attendance of 2,600, including artists, vendors and support staff, which as it stands would not trigger the mass gathering ordinance.
The ordinance only takes into account ticket sales, which is another facet of the ordinance that could be changed.
There was talk of increasing the fee to account for un-ticketed personnel, which could still be injured or commit crimes and strain the county’s emergency resources.
Sheriff Paul “Moe” Pritt said 30 days isn’t enough notification time for his department. He said “at least” when asked about 90 days by Mace and “go for it” when she suggested 120. Organizers know about a year out and 120 days is only four months.
“They can notify us a lot quicker than 30 days,” Pritt said.
Pritt also provided a breakdown of some of the expenses the sheriff’s office incurred because of Resonance – $22,656 for 840 hours of work, much of it overtime, and supplies.
As explained at the after action review, the outside agencies that helped with the festival, including the Harrison County Drug Interdiction Team, West Virginia State Police Interdiction Team, and Garrett County K-9 Officers, were assisting as a favor.
If the county had to pay for those services, as it would in the future, it would have cost $47,436.60.
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