Main Street businesses petition for July 4 route change; developer urges code updates

A representative of the Mount Pleasant Main Street Committee presented a 150-signature petition asking the city to restore the July 4 parade route to historic Main Street to boost visibility for downtown businesses and to draw attention to traffic-safety concerns on the highway corridor. "Our signature event bypasses and does not include our historic Main Street," the petitioner (Mark) said, asking the council to consider changing the route in future years and noting that the permit had not yet been submitted for this year.

Public-safety staff cautioned that changing a parade route on short notice requires traffic diagrams, insurance adjustments and coordination with law enforcement; the public-safety representative said the current route had been the smoothest in recent years and that logistical work could be large on a short schedule.

Later in the public-comment period, Jason Plassen, a former planning commission member, urged the council to tighten code and enforcement around lot splits and subdivisions, raise developer warranty/assurance requirements, require survey monumentation, improve inspection and compaction testing processes and require developers to shoulder more frontage and road construction responsibilities. Plassen argued current practice allows developers to split lots and leave infrastructure obligations incomplete, leaving the city and residents to pick up long-term maintenance costs.

Councilors and staff acknowledged both petitions and comments, suggested next steps (event coordination and parade-permit logistics for the Main Street petition; planning commission or staff work session to consider code updates in response to the lot-split concerns) and flagged the topics for upcoming agenda review.