ATHENS, Ohio — At a special meeting Monday night, Athens City Council passed an ordinance authorizing Uptown street closures for events, following a procedural error and two lengthy discussions about concurrent happenings.
At council’s Monday, April 7 meeting, Solveig Spjeldnes, 1st Ward, asked that the three-reading rule be suspended so an ordinance authorizing street closures for Uptown events could pass immediately.
Michael Wood, 3rd Ward, and Jessica Thomas, At-Large, abstained from the vote because they own Uptown businesses. Micah McCarey, At-Large, was absent. That left only four council members to vote on suspending the rules and its subsequent 3–1 passage.
City Law Director Lisa Eliason later informed council that four members were not legally enough to vote on whether to suspend the rules. Because the ordinance was not legally passed, council held a special meeting Monday night to hear second reading of it.
As during the April 7 meeting, the issue underwent lengthy discussion of the timing of Ohio Brew Week Fall Fest on Sept. 6 — the same day as Ohio University’s home football game vs. West Virginia University, which is expected to draw more than 30,000 people into the city.
Alan Swank, 4th Ward, again voiced concerns about the concurrent events, citing potential problems with security, availability of food, and an overabundance of plastics left by game-day patrons. He also suggested that if the Mountaineers lose, some West Virginia fans may become unruly.
Spjeldnes shared an April 11 email from city Deputy Service Safety Director Andrew Chiki, who says the two events could co-exist.
“While I can’t speak for the university or their position on Fall Fest, I can say that I have already been working with OU on logistics for this football game,” Chiki wrote.
That includes plans for additional parking in strategic areas around the city that would allow fans to reach Peden Stadium on foot or by shuttle, Chiki wrote.
“OU Transportation and Parking Services is actively working on this and I have been involved in those conversations,” he wrote.
Javier Hernandez, OU Athletics’ director of ticket operations, disagrees. In an email Spjeldnes shared at the meeting, Hernandez wrote that he personally believes that “Andrew Chiki’s assertion that the city has dealt with similar crowds on many occasions is dead wrong.”
Emphasizing that he spoke only for himself and not on OU’s behalf, Hernandez said that Swank’s concerns are valid.
“Picture the largest Homecoming football crowd that you can remember seeing in Athens,” he wrote. “If you add 10,000 people to that crowd, you will have an idea of what should be expected on Sept. 6.”
He supported Swank’s idea of changing the date for Ohio Brew Week Fall Fest.
However, Ohio Brew Week Director Brandon Thompson said the Sept. 6 date was chosen to take advantage of still-warm weather without occurring on Labor Day weekend or competing with the Ohio Pawpaw Festival.
In an email to Spjeldnes, Thompson wrote that the discussion about Fall Fest and the OU football game cast him and Ohio Brew Week in a negative light by the implication that festival organizers did not consider potential conflicts.
Speaking Monday night, Thompson said that the Fall Fest has occurred on the same weekend since 2017, on the roof of the city’s parking garage on West Washington Street.
“The event has worked so well that we actually moved it down to the street last year,” he said.
Fall Fest will not use food trucks, he said; festival goers will have access to local restaurants like GoodFellas, Buffalo Wild Wings and Jackie O’s Public House.
“I try to work with local food,” he said. “As you know, with street closures, a lot of people do not like when food trucks are parked in front.”
Because the festival area will be cordoned off, he added, there will be no need for law enforcement to contain the crowd.
Thompson said the event has concurred with home football games in the past with no problem.
“It’s my feeling that most of those people aren’t going to come by [the festival],” Thompson said. “The sidewalks are open …. They can walk by like they will and they’ll probably eat at Pigskin or somewhere else. They’ll probably skip our event or go home.”
Mayor Steve Patterson said he had complete confidence in Thompson’s ability to direct Ohio Brew Week Fall Fest, noting that he has worked on several festivals with Thompson in years past, all of which went very well.
The mayor also said he was in contact last weekend with Carly Leatherwood, OU office of the president chief of staff, who said there were no concerns with the two events coinciding on the same date.
The ordinance passed 5–0. Thomas and Wood again abstained.
SOPEC presentation: Costs to decrease slightly
Luke Sulfridge, executive director of the Sustainable Ohio Public Energy Council, updated the council on the council of governments’ activities. Athens is one of three founding members (along with Amesville and Athens County) of SOPEC, which now includes more than 40 municipalities and other energy-providing entities.
SOPEC recently received two federal grants, totaling $16.6 million, for EV charging stations, Sulfridge said. One of those will be at 136 N. Columbus Road in Athens, the former location of Russell’s Riverside Services, which will become a “regional charging hub,” Sulfridge said. The former fire station on Columbus Road is part of the grant, too, he said.
SOPEC purchases electricity as a group for its municipal members. Although there has been a lot of “turmoil” in the energy market of late, Sulfridge said, the city of Athens will see a small decrease in its energy rates because of its commitment to green energy.
The new rate will be effective in June and run for a year. SOPEC’s group purchasing saved the city $675,000 from 2020–2024, Sulfridge said.
Selfridge also noted the loss of the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, administered locally by Hocking Athens Perry Community Action. The Trump administration fired the program’s entire staff earlier this month.
During the special council session, the council adopted ordinances that:
- Authorized the city service-safety director to advertise and accept bids and enter contracts related to the construction of the SR 682/56 roundabout project. The $4.6 million project is anticipated to begin this summer and take up to a year to complete.
- Authorized engineering and construction of an Athens Streetscape Beautification Project on the north side of Uptown Athens, funded by an Appalachian Community Grant Program award of $6.5 million. The project will include relocation of overhead power lines underground, lighting improvements and streetscape features, such as aesthetic curbs.
- Authorized the city service-safety director to spend $1.75 million for engineering services related to design and building a new Columbus Road lift station, which will replace two old stations on Dorr Lane and Theater Lane. The new lift station, financed mainly from the sewer fund, and $120,000 coming from Community Development Block Grant Program funds, will support the new Marietta Memorial Hospital medical campus on Columbus Road.
- Allowed continuous holiday parking on city streets from Dec. 14 of this year through midnight on Jan. 11, 2026.
The ordinance passed 5–0. Thomas and Wood again abstained.
Athens City Council’s next regular meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 21, in Athens City Hall, Council Chambers, third floor, 8 E. Washington St. Meetings are also available online. Regular sessions are on the first and third Mondays of the month; committee meetings are on the second and fourth Mondays.
