City Council

City of Salem, Massachusetts “Know Your Rights Under the Open Meeting Law, M.G.L. c. 30A ss. 18-25 and City Ordinance Sections 2-2028 through 2-2033.” The City Council Committee on Community & Economic Development ci-posted with the Committee of the Whole __ will met in the Council Chamber on __May 12, 2026_____________________ at _______6:00 PM________ for the purpose of discussing the matters(s) listed below. Notice of this meeting was posted on __________________April 30, 2026___________________ at _________12:27 P.M.__________________ (This meeting is being recorded) ATTENDANCE CED – Prosniewski (Chair), King, Holappa & Smith. COW – Merkl, Hapworth & Turowski. From the city – Jeremy Fiske, Director of Special Events, Ashley Judge, Destination Salem, Dave Kucharsky, Transportation Director, Lucas Miller, Chief of Police, Alan Dionne, Fire Chief, Ray Jodoin, Director of DPS, Lisa Peterson, Mayor’s Chief of Staff. John Andrews, Creative Collective Salem. ABSENT WERE: CED – Sydoriak. COW – Flynn, Davis & Varela. SUBJECT(S) #95 Haunted Happenings Report. Presentation - Fiske – No one from the Finance Dept was able to make it so I will review that part of the presentation. The expenses and revenues have gone up from 2024 to 2025. One of the key decreases in expenses was the portable toilets. We received RFPs and even though the same company won the bid, the cost was much lower. The food truck vendors and the food truck festival went up quite a bit because we were able to put more in the common and throughout the city. Since 2021, we have been consistent with the revenue and slightly higher than the expenses. This year we are working with Destination Salem to see if we can gather other data to capture a bigger picture of the financial impact on the city. Judge – October 2025 was about level with October 2024. Halloween day was up a little bit. Weather played a roll, with 9 days of precipitation including several weekends. We also had a government shutdown. We had 9 days that port authority service (ferry) dates were cancelled. We have data on the busy days, of course, more people are visiting on the weekend. We also have data and where people are visiting from and how long they are staying. This information will be helpful for targeted campaigns. We peak at about 150,000 people on weekends. We had crumby weather on indigenous persons day weekend, so those numbers were lower than expected. Kucharsky – We issued about 3500 parking permits for October and about 730 visitor permits were purchased as well. Up to the end of October, we had issued around 3900 year-round permits and 469 of those processed during the month of October. There were 471 back-office permits and most of those were for home healthcare. There were 1,300 signs that were posted on 86 October streets which took about 120 hours. The number of tickets issued has gone down since we instituted the new license plate system. The number of tows has decreased as well. We had the same shuttle stops and there was bout 10,000 users of the shuttle service. That was less than years past, partly due to weather and we are seeing more people using the train instead of driving. Keolis (MBTA) is adding more service to Salem on October weekends and Halloween day. We would like to talk to the MBTA about extending the extra service into September. There were about 71,000 riders on the ferry although we had 9 full day cancellations as well as 2 days that some of the trips had to be cancelled because of the conditions. Miller – We have been refining the Haunted Happenings plans for about 15 years. We have several street closures which usually depends on the pedestrian crowd. We have had complaints in the past about how unpredictable those closures are so we have tried to better schedule the closures so residents can predict the closures better. We have increased fears on pedestrian safety from automobiles as well as the possibilities of bad actors. We have created a two-tier closure program. One is regular road closures and the other is a frozen zone to best prevent a car from entering a certain area that we have deemed dangerous. During the busier days downtown, we have created a downtown command with its own dispatch center. That way the rest of Salem won’t be affected by how busy it is downtown. We rely heavily on outside agencies to staff in October on very busy nights. We rely on our neighboring towns for help as well as state agencies. Although they are a great help, there is no substitute for our own officers, so we rely heavily on overtime, both voluntary and enforced. Calls for service in October are down rather significantly partly due to weather. Dionne – The fire department’s role during Haunted Happenings isn’t nearly as robust as the police department. We take care of any fire emergencies and rescues, internal EMS and managing private ambulance services. We have two UGVs that can get to emergencies downtown very quickly. They were originally equipped to just transport but we found that they are more useful for medical. Mostly we deal with falls or other injuries, but we have had a couple incidents where we are working hard to save a life, so those vehicles have really worked out well. They also hold up to 150 gallons of water, so in the event of a single fire, they can get there much more quickly than a truck. We do have extra personnel on duty, especially on weekends. We have an extra truck that we have down at Bridge St/Fort Ave area, so they don’t have to drive across town if needed. We also have reciprocal agreements with neighboring towns to help if needed. We have a good response time with Atlantic Ambulance. They have been a great partner for us. During September and October there is an extra ambulance station downtown. We also manage the light towers downtown. There are 26 of them and they help with public safety. I know that some neighbors get frustrated by them, but they really are necessary in particular areas. We own 12 of the light towers and the rest we get from NARAC. We do share light towers with Topsfield. Fiske – Every year we put out a survey to get feedback from the community. This year, we had 930 responses. We implemented road closures and barricades this year. Most people felt either safer or the same as prior years. Traffic is always a problem. Most people said it was either the same or worse than previous years. We asked how people are getting the news of events and road closures. Most are getting info from the city, whether from social media, website or the MySalem app. They are also getting info through the news and Destination Salem. We asked our residents if they go downtown during the month of October and most of them do go downtown at some point during the month. Destination Salem sent out a survey to the businesses. We had a total of 67 responses. Most people said their experience is good or very good. As far as staffing, about half were fully staffed. They asked about city management of parking, traffic, public safety, etc. Public safety was high, but where they thought it was poor or very poor was traffic and street performers. Discussion - Merkl – I appreciate all you do all year round to make Haunted Happenings safe. As someone who walks around downtown all year round, it has felt safer that last couple of years. It isn’t as dense as it has been in the past. It seems like more people are taking the train or alternate transportation. Pushing out the information when the garages are full has been very helpful. I agree that the light towers are extremely helpful. I have heard fewer negative comments about the road closures. I think that people are becoming more understanding and appreciate the necessity of the precautions. I appreciate all the overtime that the officers put in. I know that we get help from other communities but there’s nothing like our own officers that know our city and our residents. Holappa – Chief Miller, can you elaborate on federal law enforcement and their role during haunted happenings? Miller – Different agencies have different roles. The National Park Services has property in Salem, and they look after that property with our help. The largest presence is from ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire and Explosives) with detecting dogs. They have their own as well as a network of task force officers of which we have one. There is some presence by the FBI from a counter terrorism perspective with usually one agent in a command post. Holappa – Does that agent do anything regarding immigration enforcement? Miller – No. Holappa – Are you familiar with the recent FBI policy change regarding Antifa? That they are now considered a domestic terrorist organization? And they are stating that pro-transgender organizations are terrorists’ threats as well. I have some significant concerns about federal law enforcement involved in Salem and a I appreciate that they are particularly involved in a command post. King – Jeremy, can you tell me why the revenues for Pioneer Village, Witch House and Misc. went up so much? Fiske – That is not my expertise, but I can certainly find out for you. King – On the survey that was sent out, was there an opportunity to have an open-ended comment and, if so, can you send us a summary of those comments? Fiske – It would be difficult to summarize them, but I can send you a list of the comments. King – My next question is for Dave Kucharsky. If the shuttle, MBTA ridership and the ferries are down, then how is the level of attendance flat year over year? Kucharsky – Keolis (MBTA) used a new way of tracking visitors, so I think that is part of the reason those numbers are down. We are also only tracking in October, and we have had increased visitors in September which are not being tracked by the MBTA. King – Last year we discussed charging for the shuttle service. Was that implemented last year? How much does it cost to run the shuttle service? Do you think more advertising would have helped to have more shuttle riders? Kucharsky – We put out a new bid for that, and we did not get any takers so that is why this year, we will provide free parking without the shuttle service. It cost $39,000 to run the shuttle service last year. Weather was a factor in lower shuttle ridership. King – My last question is for Ashley. What are the main events in Salem that are driving the number of visitors besides Halloween day? Judge – The weekends are what drives the business in Salem and those weekends are starting as early as Labor Day weekend. Halloween gives us a national and international platform to talk about Salem and therefore people are coming here to visit all through September, October and into November. Also, as far as the question on transportation, we don’t have a way of measuring how many people are taking Uber and Lift to Salem. Last year, there weren’t as many people taking the shuttle back to their cars at the end of the day but we don’t know how they were getting back to their cars. I will do some research on that for the future. King – How about the Salem Skipper? We see an increase in ridership? Kucharsky – I don’t have those numbers today, but we saw an increase in ridership from October 2024 to October 2025. Turowski – Looking at the number for the garages, did the parking rates change from 2024 to 2025? Are those hourly rates or daily rates? Kucharsky – The rates did not change from 2024 to 2025. On weekdays, the rates are hourly but weekends there are daily rates where it is $20 for the first two hours and $50 for longer. We don’t track how many on weekday versus weekends or how many stay for an hour or two versus all day. Turowski – On the visitor origins documents, do you know or can we ask going forward, how people are getting to Salem? Can we ask the hotels to ask their customers how they got to the hotel, for example, did they take the train or bus, etc.? Do we know how many visitors are coming in for a day trip from Boston, as opposed to those that are coming in and staying overnight? Judge – We haven’t asked that in the past, but we can going forward. We have been talking to some of the smaller hotels that don’t have parking about that already, but we can get more info on that in the future. Yes, we have a lot of people that are coming into Salem from Boston and Springfield for just a day trip. We do have info on the overnight visitors separate from the day trip visitors. Hapworth – We get questions from residents all the time about tour guides and street performers. Where can they go, is amplification allowed, etc. Is there some place that the resident can go to find out all the information? It would be great to have that information in one spot where we can direct them to in the future. Fiske – We do have a lot of that information on the website, but it may not be all in one place. We have been working on getting some of that information to be easily accessible on the website so we can make sure that all that info is easy to find. Hapworth – We get a lot of complaints about the street performers. It used to be that they all needed to get licensed, but we have recently stopped that and now it seems to be like the Wild West. They can be anywhere at any time, and no one knows who they are. Fiske – We are partnering with Creative Collective (John Andrews) who will be managing the street performers. The performers need to apply, and the new vendor will be responsible for managing those performers. Judge – One of the differences will be that the street performer will be able to charge for pictures instead of asking for a tip. Andrews – Working on this task to better coordinate the street performers is going to be very difficult but much needed. We are just starting to put plans in place to see what will be enforceable and what won’t. We plan to have particular spaces for the performers, but if panhandling is free game, then that will cause a problem because someone could just go to the other side of the designated area and not be vetted. Miller – There will be difficulty with this, and I think it is twofold. First, where there is a performer performing in a designated performance space, then that gives us license to say to a performer who is encroaching on that space, to move back. But if there is nothing going on then it is more difficult to police. Also, similar with the amplification zones, a performer can just go outside of the designated area without repercussions. So, this will be an experiment, and we will try to make it better. Holappa – The Destination Salem charts are helpful, but it would be great if we could see how people are traveling to the city either for day trips or for overnight trips. Judge – We work with Placer and they are trying to get us more information on our visitors. They are tracking those visits for us. I also think the Keolis numbers will get more accurate going forward. Holappa – On the survey that is being sent out, it would be nice to know how many residents are, as opposed to those that work in Salem. And if they are telling us about traffic, it would be nice to know where they live or at least what ward. Prosniewski – I would like to ask Ray Jodoin to come up to discuss the work that DPS is doing not only on Halloween night but throughout the Haunted Happenings season. Jodoin – Last year was a little different than it has been in the past. We noticed that the trash schedule has changed slightly because there are more families coming in on Thursday and leaving on Wednesday or sooner. Having a road closure schedule was very helpful to us to be able to tackle the events more easily. Merkl – I think it is a lot more fluid how people are getting to Salem. Seeing how many trains and the number of people getting off the trains, I wasn’t very confident that the information that we received from Keolis was correct. It seems like there are more people taking the train than in the past. Also, people are taking Ubers and Lifts. Some drive in and park a couple miles away and walk into downtown so it will be hard to track all the ways that people are coming into downtown. Turowski – Since we now have a schedule for street closure, are we communicating that to rideshare drivers? Are we doing any geofencing so they can adapt their routes around the streets that are closed? Miller – A lot of the data, through the Department of Transportation, is communicated through Google so Google and Waze will pick that up. It is also posted on the Salem & Destination Salem websites. Fiske – When there is a road closure, we are texting Destination Salem, the city, Google and Waze. That information gets out almost immediately. Smith – We have Pioneer Village and Witch House lumped together. Do you have any idea how much money that will bring in for the high school? Fiske – I spoke to the mayor because he has a proposal in to add a $5 surcharge for the Witch House that will go to the construction of the high school and his estimate is that it will bring in and extra $267,000 per year. Smith – Is it possible to put a QR code around the city to take donations? I know they do that in Europe, but I wasn’t sure if we could do that here. Fiske – I think it is legal to do but we haven’t discussed it in the past, but I can bring it up at our next meeting. I know that Creative Collective has a certain number of non-profits that they need to have down in the common. Judge – We are still working out the ins and outs of revenue and expenses, and we are hoping that by this meeting next year, that we will have a better understanding of those figures. We have talked about how at Destination Salem, we have added a $5 donation option on our website. It has had a 26% opt-in rate. So, we could add that anywhere that we are asking people to buy tickets through a city owned property there would be an opportunity to see if someone might want to offer a donation. People are probably more likely to donate to a historical site, than a destination marketing organization. We are going to have more conversation with the Witch House, Pioneer Village and the city to discuss those opportunities. Smith – Under the transportation department, what is garage/office and why was there a drop in garage? Kucharsky – The office refers to the parking office where they collect the parking revenue. The revenue may be down for the month because the receipts didn’t come in until the following month, but I would have to check with finance. We also sell in October to residents, 75-80 rooftop parking spots in the garages. This doesn’t guarantee them a spot but since we sold those spots, we must close the parking lot with some of those spots empty because the owners of those spots will come into the garage and park in the first spot they see instead of on the roof. The garages are filling up every weekend. Smith – Are there designated spots for Lift and Uber drop offs? Kucharsky – We have been discussing setting up spots on the fringes of the city. I have talked to Lift and Uber and have told them not to go into the garage for drop offs, which were happening rather frequently and creating a traffic nightmare, so we have given them instructions for getting to a drop off location on St. Peter’s St. Smith – Do we know what percentage of our tour guides are insured? Do we ask that when we are issuing a license? Fiske – That would be a question for licensing, but I don’t think it is required. Smith – Do the light towers operate on gas generators? Are there better options? Dionne – They are all on diesel generators and I am sure there are better options that are more expensive and we already paid $10,000 for the towers that we have. Holappa – We are going to discontinue the October shuttle service to the university and hospital, but we are going to continue to allow parking at those locations. Can you rationalize why we aren’t charging for parking at those locations? Kucharsky – We don’t control those locations directly so we would have to come to an agreement with them and there might be an issue with insurance that we would need to investigate. Holappa – If you could charge at those locations, I am sure you would more than cover the cost of insurance. We are trying to encourage people to take other forms of transportation but having a bunch of free parking is sending the message to drive here instead. Merkl – There were many people that were looking forward to the drone show last year which was unfortunately canceled. Are there any plans for this year? Fiske – No one was more disappointed than me that we didn’t have the drone show last year, but it was too windy, so we wouldn’t have been able to have fireworks either. The plan is since we have Salem 400, we are planning to have a drone show with 400 drones. Prosniewski – The question I get the most is on the portable toilets. How much did we spend on them and did we have enough? Did Salem make money or lose money? Fiske – We spent $55,659 on porta-potties. I think we had enough units. The only change that I would make would be during the Grande Parade. Since we put in the barricades, I would put a few more units on the other side of the barricades. Overall, we made $87,016 with what we factored in. Once again, that is something that we will be looking into more with Destination Salem this year to see if there should be things that we should be including that we aren’t. That doesn’t include the meals and room excise revenue which we made $1,791,175 during the quarter that October is included in. Smith - In terms of the Common and all the activity that is done there, how much damage is done and how does DPS respond to the damage? Jodoin – There is a common maintenance fund that is run through the park rec department that are funds from the revenue that is from some of those activities that they have in the common. Smith – Do you work with Creative Collective and Jeremy to figure out the best place to put the food trucks during those events? And are those trucks, especially during the month of October, causing issues that are expensive for the city? Jodoin – Yes. We have a very smooth transition with the vendors and Creative Collective. There haven’t been any issues that are expensive to the city. Public Comment – Something needs to be done to get more foot traffic down to the wharf. There is a barricade that is up at the end of Essex St. but no signage to tell visitors that there is more beyond that street. The same is true at Congress St. The business down at the wharf was down about 30% this year because there is no signage directing visitors past Washington and Essex Sts. I bring this up every year and nothing has been done about it. I have talked to other business owners, and we are willing to spend our own money to get signs up if the city will allow us. Discussion – King – Can we put signage up on the barricades? Miller – We have encouraged the business owners to put signage up directing foot traffic to their business, but we have not put signs on the barricades. Fiske – We are planning to put signage up in the future, but I don’t know if we are allowed to put them on the barricades. I would have to look at the rules and regulations. Turowski – I think there is a plan to extend the harbor walk past Congress St. I don’t know what the timeline is for that. I hope that it will help encourage people to walk down to Pickering Wharf. Holappa – There is a question on the survey for business owners regarding increase or decrease in foot traffic. It would be interesting to see how that is in different parts of the city. Smith – Motion to receive and file the Haunted Happenings report. Motion carries 4-0. On the motion of C. Smith, the meeting adjourned at 8:00 P.M. Conrad Prosniewski MBC (Chairperson)