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Managing Spontaneous Celebrations

by Bob Betzen

sperm_whale_dives_3.jpgEvery 20 years or so a humpback whale wanders up the delta in northern California and becomes an inland sensation. Police officers and local officials hate it. It means they have to use scarce resources on crowd control and porta-potties.

Where public entities see headaches, private groups see profits. You’d better believe that as soon as the crowds show up, so do the T Shirt vendors. There’s no law that says local governments can’t profit from spontaneous gatherings.

The city council should get in touch with the local chamber of commerce when events like this occur. They could rent some farmland and use it for paid parking. A big tent on one corner of the temporary lot could serve as a place to rest, grab a cold drink and get out of the sun. It’s unfair to ask taxpayers to pay the full cost of crowd control at such events.

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Posted in Funding Public Programs on September 26th, 2007

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If you want to find criticism of our government here in America, you won’t need to look far. When it comes to politics, it seems that everyone has a grievance. Radical Avenue on the other hand, takes a solutions oriented approach to public policy. It’s radical because I’m proposing fundamental changes to the structure of our government, like transferring commander in chief responsibilities to a small elected group. My philosophy is: Everyone knows we’ve got problems, so what are we going to do about it?

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