By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
The East Troy Village Board spent a great deal of time at the July 18 board meeting discussing how handle the problem of people “reserving” seating on the square for events like the Fourth of July parade.
Police Chief Alan Boyes told the board his department had more problems this year than in the past and even told the board of one incident when a homeowner had to call the police to come and remove chairs that had been left on their property.
“For me, it’s become a safety issue,” Boyes told the board. “We can’t do anything about private property, but we do own the square.”
Anyone in East Troy the week before the parade saw how Village Square Park began to fill up with chairs and reserved seating areas as early as Wednesday afternoon for the Sunday morning parade.
This caused problems for the Thursday night concert at the park and for the East Troy Area Chamber of Commerce’s weekly farmers market on Friday and the family picnic held in conjunction with the market.
The board discussed at great length how to handle the issue and it was decided that from now on, people are only allowed to start reserving a space on the square park starting a noon the day before the event.
Boyes said any personal belongings left on Village Square Park before that will be picked up by either the Police Department or the Department of Public Works and the owners will be able to retrieve the items from those departments.
