 As the city of Bemidji grows, more and more events are popping up on the calendar, which is why the city is looking at rolling out a new ordinance. Josh Peterson shows us how local event organizers are working, hoping to work with the city on a new special events ordinance. The Bemidji City Council Chambers was filled as if it was a special event, only this time it was filled with event organizers who were concerned about a proposed special events ordinance that was receiving a second reading. I think really just kind of looking at a process over the last year of what other cities do, what works, what doesn't work and having kind of open communication with all the event organizers as well as the businesses. During its second reading, organizers from many of Bemidji's established events brought forth their concerns about the proposal, some with so many questions that a request was made to have a special work session on the events topic. There's lots of questions and I know that there's many organizations in this crowd tonight that are concerned. Some things and here we just we don't know what it means yet because we haven't filtered that out kind of through all the different people that this is going to apply to so if we could have some discussion with the next month I think it would be great. Business owners also shared their thoughts and asked the city not to limit their creativity. It would start with creativity with some of the events. They were limited to large nonprofits that have the staff or the budget to do it or businesses that are much more established and so taking this back to the drawing board getting more input I think will help it be a better policy. While those in attendance agree that a policy and process needs to be put in place they would like to be included in the creation of the special events ordinance. I think they were very respectful and just really wanting information and wanting to work with the city and I think that's a great place to be. With an agreement to work with all interested parties the city will pick up the special events ordinance issue in the new year. Inbemiji Josh Peterson, Lakeland News. The city council voted and agreed to continue the ordinance hearing during its meeting on January 22nd. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.