Elon’s town council has injected a spark of new verbiage into a downtown facilities policy that recently prompted a local nonprofit group to make a special appeal to the council to access the town’s power supply for a charitable event.
The council’s approved this rule change on Tuesday with a speed and resolve that contrasted sharply with its tedious half-hour discussion two weeks ago when the Alamance County Service League asked its members to cosponsor an upcoming 5k just so it could plug into an electrical outlet at Elon’s new downtown plaza.
See earlier story with council’s original discussion: https://alamancenews.com/elon-council-weighs-electricity-use-for-an-upcoming-5k-event/
The organization had gone the extra kilometer for this relatively modest concession due to a provision in the town’s facilities policy that had reserved the plaza’s electrical outlets for municipal functions.
As an end-run around this restriction, the town’s staff had advised the league to approach the town council with a formal request to co-sponsor the race. But seeing the group reduced to this extremity was too much for council members like Stephanie Bourland, who dramatically flourished a $10 bill in an offer to cover the estimated cost of the group’s electrical usage.
On Tuesday, Elon’s town manager Richard Roedner returned to the council with a couple of suggestions to make the facilities policy more accommodating to nonprofit groups.
Among other things, Roedner proposed a $10 fee for an outside organization to use the plaza’s electricity during a special event. He also recommended some additional language in case the council would rather not have to deal with these sorts of requests in the future.
“If you want that done administratively,” he added, “the wording for that is attached to the agenda item.”
In the end, it took the council took less than three minutes to accept the proposed changes, which included the manager’s proposal to have staff deal with these matters directly. The revisions went on to pass in a 5-to-0 vote.
