Okay, it's 455 and I'll call the public safety committee meeting to order.

If the clerk would call the roll, please.

Alder Schaefer.

Here.

Alder Whartonweather?

Here.

And Alder Velkley.

Here.

Okay.

We're all here.

Any corrections and minutes from our last meeting, May 11th, 2026.

Hearing none, they'll stand as presented.

Next C1 discussion and possible recommendation to common council.

Cheese days event application.

So in front of you is the special event for cheese days from uh September 17th through September 20th.

In front of you is the application with all the supporting materials, along with the police department's recommendations on there as well.

That's quite the long list of um notes and there uh have been a few changes since previous years.

So could we get a rundown of the changes?

Yeah, overall the the the event is similar to the last one.

Probably some of the changes that you would see here for us is the inclusion of um like the two parks, the downtown parks are named in the in the application form, uh, so that uh they they're part of the open container relaxation area.

Um but you know, overall there's not a a lot of is there more than I can think of?

What the buses are still stopping at the same place?

Uh the archives are still in the same positions.

The area didn't get any larger I mean, those of you who haven't seen it, it's a pretty in-depth, I don't know how many, it seems like 50 or 60 pages uh attachment to the uh to the permit that lists you know all the streets that close when they close, when the downtown the the downtown sort of collapses down starting even like on Monday of Cheese Days Week, you know, some of that well, some of it even starts on Saturday, the Saturday before where they stage like blocks that they use to hold up tents and it it's a well-oiled machine that uh that works down through, and um you know that some of the differences over the years are now we worry more about um putting barriers in so people don't drive in there by accident or on purpose more so than worry about people that might carry an open cup of beer out past the the area.

We're less likely to even put up those kind of uh uh of area things now.

So I don't know what more.

Does that help and answer your question, Alder Schaefer?

Okay.

Um, one thing that maybe the other council members maybe didn't know that for a couple times now we've actually put out signs that don't let people put their chairs and goodies out on the terrace until Saturday night after we had some experiences with people fighting over turf not just downtown but like along all along the parade route.

So we copied um a cross who has the large Oktoberfest, and they don't let them put stuff out.

So we did that, and there was some grumbling, but for the most part, I think people are pretty accepting of it.

So I like that idea when that went up because people would start so early on Saturday, even putting everything down.

Oh, they started the Monday and Tuesday the before, and uh, and they would fight, and we had people spray with water, and the people would you know set up chairs in front of somebody else's house, and then they'd decide that it was time to get the sprinkler out and and uh and but there was nothing we could do about that.

They're in charge of their own terrace, and I can't help it if people try and put that stuff out there days in advance.

We give some people an inch and they want a mile.

Any other questions about for me?

Well, maybe of course you might know that I'm not comfortable with the open containers in the entire festival grounds for the entire length of the festival.

Um my concern and my consideration is the children and the youth and our community is I think if I remember our last um police report, annual police report.

Um my concern and my consideration is the children and the youth and our community is I think if I remember our last police report, annual police report, the most instances of the police getting involved with people in the community had were related to alcohol, like the highest number.

Am I correct in that?

Or alcohol plays a great part of alcohol plays a great part of police calls, Alder.

You're absolutely right.

And it is the it's the number one drug of abuse in our area more so than um regular controlled substances.

But I would tell you, and I have said this many times is that um having the open containers as part of especially a large festival like Cheese Days has actually brought us where we don't have as many problems because we used to have when I first started here in the 80s, we'd put 500 people in a tavern that there should only be 200 people in, and that led to friction, and that led to fights, and we had a lot more fights then than we do now.

Now we spread it all over.

Um I don't know that I could I could agree that the youth are overly affected by because they're I mean it's up to the parents to keep an eye on those legally in Wisconsin.

You can take your children to the tavern with you if you want to.

Um so it's kind of like that, and so I don't know that we have those same kind of issues, but you know, it's even if we don't have open containers, it doesn't mean that the people still won't drink, you know.

I if you if you think that cheese days is not a drinking festival, it's a different one than I've been going to for a long time.

Um, but it has not been the issue that uh that everybody was worried about.

So I mean, when they came to us and said, would you try this?

We said, okay, why not?

And it I would not look back.

I can tell you that I would be disappointed if they changed it to not have that.

So I mean that my recommendation is that you go along with the open container part of this.

And I think with COVID in the past too, it's nice to not be packed in next to people.

It's nice to have the room around.

Well, and and uh obviously that's very true, and and it it did kind of put us in a good spot when that we were first able to go back to that.

Was that you know that that social distancing is kind of there?

So I never thought of it that way, but that's true.