Update: Here’s a statement from National Park Service spokesperson Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles:
The National Park Service and United States Park Police recognize the importance and value of the Fort Reno concerts to the community. The NPS and USPP met with the concert organizer in February to review last year’s series and discuss planning for 2015.
One of the primary goals in permitting any event is to ensure public safety. These fees are standard practice for many permitted special events.
When asked if the procedures have changed between 2014 and 2015 that could’ve caused series organizer Amanda MacKaye’s last-minute call for help, Anzelmo-Sarles said that they haven’t. The only thing that changed was the standard fee for U.S. Park Police, which increased from $66/hour to $70/hour in 2015.
For anyone that regularly attends the Fort Reno shows, they’re largely peaceful, easy-going shows, which makes one wonder why police presence is at all necessary. But Anzelmo-Sarles says that, when hosting an event on federal land, “USPP evaluates permit applications to determine what level [of] USPP support is warranted.”*
Anzelmo-Sarles adds that, during four shows last summer, “there were 12 documented incidents ranging from illegal vending to drug and alcohol violations.”
*Editor’s note: This statement originally stated that a USPP presence was required for any event on federal land. This was not correct and has been updated
Original post:
Well, this is a bummer: the future of the Fort Reno concert series is, once again, in trouble.
Last year, the longtime summer concert series almost didn’t happen because a change in procedure from the National Park Service and the U.S. Park Police meant that the series’ organizer, Amanda MacKaye, would have to pay to have police presence at the concerts. Some stuff happened (WCP chronicled all that went down in a nice cover story), the Park Police and MacKaye worked it out on the Kojo Nnamdi Show, and the shows went on.
But now the same change in procedures have left the Fort Reno budget essentially dry and she’s asking for donations to help save the series for this year.
“NPS and USPP have informed me that once again we will have to pay for police presence,” MacKaye writes on the Fort Reno website. “I shudder at having to write that because it makes the concert series appear like an unsafe environment—something it definitely is not. I had hoped that our peaceful series in 2014 would have changed minds, or that I could—but alas, here we are.”
Right now, Fort Reno is asking for donations through their fiscal sponsor, The Washington Peace Center, and you can donate what you want here.
We’ve reached out to MacKaye and the U.S. Park Police for more information and will update when we hear back.
