Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Parks Ordinance Golf Carts topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Westfield parks board recommends ordinance changes to allow golf carts, revise trail yield order and set trail hours
Summary
The Westfield Parks and Recreation Board on May 7 voted to recommend that the City Council amend Chapter 93 of the Westfield Code of Ordinances to reflect a new golf cart ordinance, add golf carts into the trail duty-to-yield hierarchy, and set specific trail hours for year‑round use.
The Westfield Parks and Recreation Board voted May 7 to recommend that the City Council amend Chapter 93 of the Westfield Code of Ordinances to reflect a new golf cart ordinance, revise trail users’ duty‑to‑yield order to include golf carts, and set fixed trail hours year‑round.
The recommendation — filed as Resolution 25 1 27 and including draft revisions in Exhibit A — would align the parks code with a separate golf cart ordinance to be introduced at the City Council meeting. Chris, speaking for the parks department, told the board the changes are intended to codify the golf cart rules and to adjust trail user priorities and hours.
“The changes are specific to the golf cart ordinance that would be, introduced with this ordinance at Monday's council meeting,” Chris said. He also summarized the proposed yield language: “The next item that changes in the rules ordinance is the trail user's duty to yield and it is written as such up there and adds golf carts into that yield structure. So as stated up here, golf carts yield to bicycles, golf carts and bicycles yield to rollerbladers, golf cart, bicycle, and rollerbladers yield to skateboard, and so on and so forth until all yield to pedestrians.”
Chris described the proposed hours in detail: “The hours of operation would change and are written as such and would change to trails be available for use Sunday through Wednesday, 5AM until 9PM, Thursdays, 5AM to 10PM, and Friday and Saturday from 5AM to 11:59PM. And that would be 365 days a year.” He said the schedule was set in response to direction from the mayor and council and intended to limit late‑night golf cart use while accommodating weekend trips downtown.
Board member Caitlin asked whether the resolution and the attached draft ordinance should be considered a single item. “So I don't think that the second action item would be separate. Right? So because the resolution has this attached, it would just be really 1 item. Okay,” she said. Chris confirmed: “Correct. That it is on there strictly for reference so that they could see all of the rules as stated currently in the ordinance. That is the only reason it's there.”
After limited discussion, a motion to approve Resolution 25 1 27 carried on a roll‑call vote of present members. The board’s recommendation will be transmitted to the City Council; Chris said the recommended code changes would need to follow passage of the golf cart ordinance at the Council level.
The board’s action was limited to a recommendation to council; the transcript does not record the Council’s response or any changes to the draft ordinance at the city‑council level.
