Larkspur Council adopts parks special-event fees, bounce-house electrical fee and new policy with school waiver

The Larkspur City Council on Feb. 18 approved a set of park-use rules and fees meant to govern larger, ticketed and exclusive events at city parks, and adopted a parks special-event policy that includes a newly added provision giving the recreation director authority to waive or reduce fees for schools and nonprofits that are not charging an entrance fee.

Recreation Director Nick Stone told the council the fee structure was built from area comparisons and local experience. For large rentals at Piper Park he proposed an hourly benchmark (about $500 per hour) and said the administration will charge for setup and cleanup time when appropriate; for bounce houses Stone proposed a $50 fee for a half day and a $75 fee for a full day to allow vendors to use newly installed picnic-area electrical hookups and avoid noisy gas generators. “The fees you see before you now … are a $50 fee, for a half day and a $75 fee for a full day,” Stone said.

The policy and fees are aimed at events that take exclusive use of public space, Stone and councilmembers said; small picnic-area gatherings, many school field days and city-run recreation programs are intended to be exempt or treated separately. Stone said city-run programs such as Music in the Park will remain exempt and that organizers should be local or community-based, though the council agreed the director should retain discretion to approve other requests on a case-by-case basis.

Council members pressed staff on how the fees were justified, whether they reflect true cost recovery (staff time, public-works support and lost rental revenue) and how nonprofit or school events would be treated. The council amended the policy to add explicit language allowing the recreation director to "waive or reduce" fees — for example to recover only the public-works staff hourly cost or electricity use — when events are consistent with past direction from the council and do not charge admission.

Two separate resolutions implementing the fees and the bounce-house rules were approved by voice vote during the public-hearing portion of the meeting, and the council then adopted the overall parks special-event policy (Resolution 13/26) that incorporates the waiver/reduction clause. The transcript records approval by voice (council members answered “aye”); no roll-call vote tally or recorded roll-call vote count appears in the transcript.

Staff will bring final fee schedules and the written policy language (including the waiver mechanism) into the city’s annual fee review and post the policy and application materials for organizers to use. Stone said the policy will include standard site-plan, composting, security and insurance requirements and that staff will work with vendors to ensure insurance and permitting compliance.