Chad Radabaugh, chief of police, city of Ishpeming

ISHPEMING — The Ishpeming City Council on Wednesday approved a brownfield plan for The Mather to build a two-story parking garage for the community and tenants at The Mather that could improve parking in the city.

The parking garage would be used by tenants of The Mather, library patrons and visitors to Ishpeming. The Mather co-owner Bill Anderson said that there would be no overnight parking for visitors due to winter season regulations.

Additionally, the parking garage would have Ishpeming and Negaunee’s first electric vehicle charging stations.

The city council also had a first reading of an amendment to ordinance 2-300 (breach of peace, disorderly persons and misdemeanors) and 2-400 (fireworks) as well as a first reading of ordinance 2-1300 (anti-camping ordinance) and 5-1400 (parking and storage of recreational vehicles).

The city council did not vote on any of the ordinances due to it being the first reading.

Ishpeming Police Chief Chad Radabaugh first addressed ordinance 2-300. Radabaugh said that he has received complaints from the council and residents about people walking down public streets and around town with open cans of beer and other alcoholic beverages.

Radabaugh said the ordinance would not interfere with family gatherings or parties but prevent citizens from walking down the street or around town with an alcoholic beverage. He said the ordinance would also not interfere during events where alcoholic beverages could be purchased and consumed.

“This ordinance is not intended to disrupt those (gatherings and events),” Radabaugh said.

The next ordinance addressed was ordinance 2-400. Radabaugh said the fireworks ordinance would now align with the state of Michigan’s fireworks law on what days and times fireworks can be let off.

Ishpeming Mayor Jason Chapman said the ordinance still had a lot of days where citizens could let off fireworks. Radabaugh said the ordinance aligned with Michigan law to not have any violation with the state’s law.

“These days were taken exactly from state law, so there’s not much we can do to fix that (amount of days),” Radabaugh said.

Radabaugh also addressed ordinance 2-1300 in relation to campgrounds and tents belonging to the homeless. He said that the city has seen a rise over the last several years of individuals who are homeless and set up campgrounds near the trails within the city that has created issues.

Radabaugh also said that last year the city had an issue of a camp that was left and when cleaned up found hundreds of hypodermic needles. He said this ordinance would give the city an opportunity to either help these individuals or clean up the area.

“We as a city have been trying to clean up the city itself,” Radabaugh said. “We’ve become a big haven for the biking, mountain biking, walking and the nice trails that we have, and it’s kind of sad to see when we have tents lined up on these with needles around that we have kids playing.”

Radabaugh said he is hoping that the ordinance will help prevent further problems and for the police department to be able to enforce the ordinance more.

The last ordinance reading was on parking and storage of recreational vehicles. Radabaugh said that he has received several complaints of big RVs being parked causing accidents and rights-of-ways to be blocked.

“It’s not intended to say that someone can’t park an RV in their front yard or on the city street for a couple nights to work on it, to clean it and get ready to go camping,” Radabaugh said. “It’s not intended for that, but it is intended for safety purposes, which we’ve seen.”

He said that he looked at several different cities to come up with rules that would make sense for Ishpeming.

All readings were unanimously approved as first readings and moved to a second reading at the next city council meeting.

To watch the full meeting online, visit youtube.com/watch?v=aH12tljWixc. The next city council meeting is scheduled for May 3.

Dreyma Beronja can be reached at 906-228-2500 ext. 248. Their email address is dberonj@miningjournal.net.