By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD — The Town Council this week OK’d some revisions to the “Rules and Regulations Relating to Parks Playgrounds and Recreation Areas.” Councilors also suggested a few tweaks of their own, which will be incorporated before the Council approves the final version at its next meeting.
Town Administrator Stephen P. Maio said that during the pandemic, a lot of local residents “rediscovered” the Common as many events that used the Common were canceled during the past year. He said that citizens have reached out saying that they enjoyed the fact that the Common and the area around the Lake was not booked for events every weekend.
The idea of limiting the number of large-scale events around the Lake is not new and has been discussed in the past. At this week’s Town Council meeting, Maio proposed some changes to the regulations pertaining to use of the Common and areas around the Lake.
He initially suggested limiting the use of the Common for large organized events to just two weekends a month, so that local residents would have more opportunities to enjoy the Common. But some Town Council members felt even that was too much and suggested that large events should be limited to three weekend days a month.
Maio stressed that a number of iconic Wakefield events would be “grandfathered” and would not be affected by the changes to the regulations. Those would include the Festival by the Lake, Friends of Lake Quannapowitt events, July Fourth activities and the annual Common Ground event. Other events may be grandfathered at the Town Council’s discretion.
Maio said that there were also changes made to the fees charged to organizations for using the Common, which were thought to be too low.
He said that all groups will now be required to use the the town’s online portal system for booking events. That way, all town departments will be automatically notified of the events and will be able to weigh in.
Councilor Anne Danehy asked if it would be possible to exclude groups with extremist views.
Town Counsel Thomas Mullen said that it would be illegal to discriminate based on viewpoint, but said that the Council could prohibit all political use.
Councilor Edward Dombroski expressed concern that the limitations could have the unintended effect of Wakefield-based events competing against each other for limited time slots. He felt that the policy needed to be less absolute, especially with respect to smaller local events. He suggested a language change to address that.
The Town Council endorsed the revised regulations with the additional tweaks proposed by councilors. They will vote on the final written version at their next meeting.
