Jenny Hall-Jones, interim vice President for Student Affairs and dean of students, and Councilwoman Jennifer Cochran, D-At Large are co-chairing a city and university task force to look into the safety of fests, Hall-Jones said.
The kegs and fanny packs for fest season might not have been purchased yet, but fests are on the minds of those in leadership positions at Ohio University and the City of Athens.
Jenny Hall-Jones, the interim vice president for Student Affairs and dean of students, and Councilwoman Jennifer Cochran, D-At Large, are co-chairing a city and university task force to look into the safety of fests, Hall-Jones said.
“The mission of bringing this group together is how to make it safer for our students and whoever goes,” Hall-Jones said.
That task force came out of a lunch between the university and city leaderships where the city council members were in attendance as well as OU’s executive staff, Hall-Jones said.
“Some of the discussion led to the decision that there will be two joint-task forces established, one focusing on affordable housing in Athens and one focusing on the issue of fests and the way that they affect the community and the campus community as well and the quality of life here,” Cochran said.
The task force recently met for the first time as they were given the charge by OU President Roderick McDavis and City Council President Chris Knisely, Cochran said.
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“We are just trying to get all the right people around the table, so there’s people from the county, the city and the university, and right now, we are at the brainstorming phase,” Hall-Jones said.
The task force will be looking to use the expertise of local law enforcement, Cochran said.
At Number Fest, the Ohio Investigative Unit arrested 117 individuals on 159 charges, according to a previous Post report.
“We don’t anticipate that this group is really going to have an impact on the upcoming season and events but really looking at longer range planning as far as how can we minimize the detrimental impact to the community and make things work better for folks on campus and in the community,” Cochran said. “We want to work with students and community members to help everybody just host this a little more peacefully and pleasantly.”
OUPD typically brings in outside officers to help during fest weekends, OUPD Lt. Tim Ryan said.
"We work closely with the city in managing the fests from a police perspective and assist in patrolling the event areas," Ryan said in an email.
Ryan said fest season is getting less problematic, with the exception of Number Fest.
"I think the city’s nuisance party law has contributed to decreasing the problems that have plagued fests over the years," Ryan said in an email.
Corey Gossard, a senior studying mechanical engineering, lives on Mill Street and said he had people jump off his roof during Mill Fest last year.
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“Mill Fest is definitely really rowdy because you got a lot of the newer underclassmen who are trying to jump in,” Gossard said.
The Mill Street resident said he feels it is good that the task force is trying to make fests safer.
“Definitely you want to make it safe because there’s a lot of drunk college kids, but I think recently that how early they’ve shut down fests and stuff is really not as good as they think it is because that’s upsetting a lot of students, so that’s given them a reason to be provoked,” Gossard said.
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