Fraser on Bike week

At the candidates forum at the Weirs Community Center last Monday night Mayor Mark Fraser, in response to a question about Motorcycle Week, responded by referring to the municipal ordinance that "requires anyone who promotes an event to bear the cost of that event."

Fraser said the Laconia Motorcycle Rally and Race Association clearly promotes the event by courting corporate sponsors, touting the event to a national market and publishing the Laconia Rally News. "According to the ordinance, Rally and Race should pay the bill," he said. "But, whenever they're asked, they say no."

This is not the first time that Fraser has raised the issue. In September of last year he used the forum of a city council meeting to charge that the city's Licensing Board was being less than diligent in enforcing an ordinance that reads, "No person shall advertise, announce post notice or take action in any other manner to notify anyone of any proposed activity hereunder without having first obtained a license for the proposed activity from the Licensing Board."

The Rally and Race Association has historically responded that Motorcycle Week does not come under the jurisdiction of this particular ordinance because it is not an "event", but rather a free-form rally surrounded by a number of events that association has no control over.

"In 1996, the city spent zero on roads, zero," Fraser said Monday, "and $175,000 on an event."