The North Pole City Council adopted an ordinance Monday that bans certain fundraising activities that had been causing safety concerns in the community, namely approaching cars at red lights or stop signs to ask for donations.
The measure, introduced by Mayor Larry Terch III, prohibits entering public roads or sidewalks to request immediate donations of money, seek employment or seek business patronage from occupants of vehicles.
Doing so in North Pole will now be punishable by a maximum fine of $50. That’s down from the proposed $500 due to an amendment offered by Councilmember David Brandt Monday that reduced the fine.
“I think everyone agrees $500 is just excessive,” he said. “Hopefully it will never even come to a citation, but if it does, a $50 fine should be sufficient.”
The amendment passed 5-0. Terch abstained.
In August, the council agreed the measure is not meant to prevent people from advertising their fundraisers on sidewalks, as long as donations from drivers are collected elsewhere, off of public roads.
But at the August meeting, the council chose to postpone their final vote on the ordinance. At the time, council members were mostly in support of the measure’s public safety rationale, but they couldn’t decide whether to allow exemptions to the ordinance through a permit, nor what the details in that possible permit should be.
On Monday, that debate concluded with an amendment that approved removing the references to a permitting process, along with another exemption. That amendment passed 5-1, with Terch the only no vote.
Following the changes, Councilmember Anton Keller said he thinks they reached a decent final product.
“I think this is pretty fair,” he said. We spent quite a few weeks on this, and I think this is a good step forward.”
Most other council members agreed. But since its introduction, Brandt has opposed the ordinance, saying it’s redundant, a position he maintained on Monday. He pointed primarily to existing state administrative code that says pedestrians cannot solicit employment, business or contributions from occupants of vehicles while on a highway.
North Pole Police Chief Jed Smith continued to disagree with Brandt, and he said the more specificity North Pole code can provide, the better.
“It’s, in my opinion, always better, not to have more red tape or regulation, but just to have more ways to apply it to the situation at hand,” Smith said.
Brandt said the language in the ordinance still isn’t substantially different enough from Alaska administrative code to be necessary.
The measure ultimately passed on a 5-1 vote.