Ordinance could prohibit people from marking their spot ahead of time for the Clear Lake 4th of July parade

CLEAR LAKE — The Clear Lake City Council next month could be considering an ordinance that would ban people from marking their spot ahead of time for the community’s 4th of July parade. It’s been a sore subject for years for some property owners along Main Avenue who find chairs, tarps, and other items days or weeks ahead of time, saving a space for the annual parade.

City Administrator Scott Flory says another issue this year is street and sidewalk work that’s being done on Main between 14th and 20th.  “The flat work is going on there now, so the sidewalks weather permitting should be done by Memorial Day, and then that’s going to get sodded. You need about three to four weeks for that sod to get firmly established, so we want to keep people off of that. We’ve seen this trend here over the 20 years I’ve been here, it gets earlier and earlier every year, where we start to see tarps and blankets and other items put out to save spots on the 4th of July parade route on Main Avenue.”

Flory says an informal survey done by the city shows support for the ordinance.  “If you recall, a couple of years ago we put out something on social media on that. We got a pretty favorable reaction to that from the community, very interested in seeing us move forward with that.”

Whether or not the council approves of any ordinance, Flory asks that people don’t put anything on the new sod until right before the parade.  “Certainly that section between 14th and 20th we don’t want any tarps, blankets or things like that out. Talking to the landscape guy, it probably would be ok the morning of the parade, but certainly we don’t want it out there within a 12 hour window would be about the max.”

The council gave their approval for Flory to draft an ordinance for the council’s consideration in the future, whether it be a temporary one-year law to address the construction area, or to permanently include the entire parade route.