Falls Church City Manager Wyatt Shields and his staff currently are attempting to juggle requests from various organizations to close streets for Halloween-themed events.
At least six have come in, double the typical number of street closings allowed on any given day, city officials say.
“Closing too many streets in one day is a public-safety concern in terms of emergency access and things like that,” Shields said at an Oct. 16 meeting with Mayor Letty Hardi and other city leaders to set agendas for coming meetings.
Whether a three-a-day limitation is appropriate is an open question, Shields acknowledged.
“There’s a line to be drawn somewhere — the question is, have we drawn it in the right place?” he said.
The comments by Shields came after Hardi said she had received “a bunch of appeals” from organizations that found their requests denied.
Having no authority to address them directly, “I’m going to send them to the city manager,” she said.
In an effort to make everyone reasonably happy, city officials could ask those seeking closures of road stretches close to one another to team up on one single stretch, Shields said.