Palmerfest cost the city of Athens close to $81,500, which is much higher than previous years because of the cost of employing outside police officers.
Police Chief Richard Mayer said the total cost for enforcement was $53,500 for the city police, outside officers, booking and transportation and other expenses.
Athens Mayor Ric Abel said normally the police costs are $15,000 to $20,000. This year the cost for all non-police city workers was around $28,000 because most were paid overtime. Some of these workers were used for safety, street clean-up, code enforcement and trash pick-up.
The total cost does not include the extra time spent in planning meetings with Palmer Street residents or making phone calls. It also does not include the overtime pay for Ohio University Police officers or OU officials, Abel said.
If you added it all up
I don't think I'd want to see the total he said. He estimated that the total costs of everything would probably come close to $100,000.
The city will not be able to make up all of the costs, Abel said. Some of the money will come from the regular fund budgeted for overtime costs.
OU committed $25,000 for expenses to reimburse the city for police pay and other supplies, according to a May 14 article in The Post.
Abel said the Athens City Council gave an additional $15,000 to help pay for the extra outside officers from the tourism and economic fund.
Last year's costs were less because only four or five outside police officers were involved. They volunteered their time and were only paid mileage. The city could not have had the 70 extra officers without pay, he said.
Before Palmerfest, Abel said he hoped they would have too many officers.
Afterwards, he said that they probably could have had five or 10 less, but not as many as 20.
However, the main goal of safety was met with all of the extra officers, even if costs were high, he said.
I think the behavior was better than previous years Abel said about his visit to Palmer Street during the party.
He said he saw less confrontation and students seemed to just want to have a good time. He saw 10 people being arrested and only three were OU students. About 100 people were arrested total on Palmer Street.
The vast majority of students know and respect the rules
Abel said.
City officials just had a meeting with residents of High Street for this weekend's Highfest. The police might be staffed a little higher with OU police officers helping out, but it is just part of the weekend strategy for spring, he said.
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Jayne Gest
