NEWS
Local coalition prepares for Freakfest
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Also by Ken Harris:
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- PACE may recommend parental notification (September 13, 2002)
- PACE marks sobering 10-year anniversary (April 26, 2006)
- PACE leaders discuss impact of new fines (September 15, 2004)
by Ken Harris
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Members of a local coalition met Tuesday to discuss the city's plans for Halloween and possible new alcohol policies for the future.
PACE — Policy, Alternatives, Community and Education — is an organization made up of members of the University of Wisconsin faculty, city government and student organizations whose main goal is to reduce high-risk drinking and its consequences.
One of the major issues on the agenda Tuesday was Freakfest and how the event will be run this Halloween.
In a presentation made to the coalition, current mayoral aide and former alcohol policy coordinator Joel Plant revealed tentative plans for the celebration.
The event this year will be funded by private investors including Pepsi. However, the list of investors does not include any alcohol-related businesses.
Plant said private funds will ease the city budget after last year's event cost the city $800,000 to organize and secure.
"We don't want to justify an event based on people's bad behavior," Plant said, adding when the cost of processing last year’s citations is added up, there is little or no profit for the city.
In addition to contracting Frank Productions to handle the entertainment and ticketing, RTM, a private security company from Milwaukee that specializes in large concert security, will be coordinating with the Madison Police Department to ensure public safety.
"Halloween has gone from being a police event to a communitywide, safe and fun event," Plant said.
Another major item on the agenda for the meeting Tuesday was the discussion of alcohol policies, both those already enacted and those still in the early planning phase of development.
"Holding students accountable for their behavior is a good thing," said Aaron Brower, PACE's principal investigator.
The coalition also discussed the effectiveness of parental notification and how it works as not only a deterrent to keep students from drinking too much and being sent to detox, but also how it protects the university from liability in the case there is an incident.
Another tactic the coalition endorses is having those with citations for fake IDs and underage drinking sent to municipal court, where they have a better chance of being pursued fully, instead of circuit court, which is often too busy to devote time to such offenses.
In addition, the coalition would like to see police officers issue more $501 citations for fake ID violations, as opposed to only issuing $249 underage consumption citations.
Anonymous (October 3, 2007 @ 2:49am):
Heftier fines for students for alcohol-related infractions could never lead to more fundraising house parties, that's unpossible!
- Germain Q. Stemme
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