The city of Bozeman will allow the Green Coalition of Gay Loggers to close Main Street for only two hours on the Fourth of July, rather than the 12 hours the group requested, concluding that closing the street for any longer would disrupt traffic.
"Closing nine blocks of Main Street through the historic business district for a privately organized event for the 12.5-plus hours requested will substantially interrupt the safe and orderly movement of other pedestrian or vehicular traffic," Public Services Director Debbie Arkell wrote in a letter Monday to Brian Leland, organizer of the coalition.
The city approved closing the street from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. for the coalition's parade. It denied closing the road from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. for a car show, bike races and live music.
But Leland is appealing that decision, saying he believes his request was within the confines of city code. The code does not put a limit on how long the street can be closed.
"The city needs to get a handle on what the policy is going to be," Leland said.
The Bozeman City Commission is expected to decide whether or not to grant Leland's appeal during its regular meeting March 22. Commissioners have also said they'd like to look at overall revisions to street-closure rules.
Mayor Jeff Krauss said he's not keen on allowing Leland's lengthy closure request because it shuts out other groups from having events, too.
"I don't think our ordinance is designed to do this kind of blocking of other people, and I think that's a problem," Krauss said Monday. "It seems to have gotten pretty far down a track that I'm very uncomfortable with at this point."
After Leland filed the request in February for his Fourth of July celebration, Leland said the event is intended "to head off any political confrontation" on the holiday this year.
Last year, the coalition and the Bozeman Tea Party, a group protesting government spending and the national debt, held back-to-back marches on Main Street on July 4.
City law prohibits granting two street closure permits for the same time and place.
As of Tuesday, the tea party hadn't filed a request with the city to hold its own Fourth of July event, but local organizer Henry Kriegel said last week that they've talked about it.
Leland formed the coalition last summer to oppose tax dollars being spent on closing the street for the tea party. Meanwhile, the tea party countered that paying for free speech would set a dangerous precedent.
This year, Leland is asking to close Main Street from Rouse to Grand avenues from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. for a parade and car show, then expand the closure west to Fifth Avenue until 5 p.m. for bicycle races, then shrink it to a one-block section until 9 p.m. for live music.
Amanda Ricker can be reached at aricker@dailychronicle.com or 582-2628.
CGilmore posted at 8:26 pm on Thu, Mar 11, 2010.
The more attention these types of people get, the more they will keep going... I wonder how many tax dollars are spent debating these ridiculous arguments?
Chuck Feney posted at 1:18 pm on Thu, Mar 11, 2010.
Green gay loggers short sheeted in attempt to Tea Bag disgruntled Republicans.
Tusken posted at 9:35 am on Thu, Mar 11, 2010.
The Green Coalition of Gay Loggers is a group that was created to be a mockery of religion and our beautiful First Amendment that gives Americans freedom of speech. This group only wants to BLOCK freedom of speech and have no other cause that they stand for, as shown in the picture of the Greg Bloom's sign that reads, "Rights for Robots." Our freedom of speech is so important that our founding fathers included it in the very first amendment of our founding document that was created after the BOSTON TEA PARTY. These guys should not even be allowed a permit. We need some clearer guidelines on closing down Main Street so people like this can't just come and mock our freedoms.
At least the Bozeman Tea Party stands for something - for liberty, transparency in our government, and call for this wonderful FREE country to come back to it's roots in "Government FOR the people, BY the people." No socialism allowed!!
And, before we call anyone hypocritical, lets remember that we ALL are in some way. We cannot always keep our word, for whatever reason, and I'm sure we'd all like to do a better job with ourselves and relationships, yet fall short from time to time.
dan posted at 8:40 am on Wed, Mar 10, 2010.
let's all watch the city commission cave in to the tea drinkers.