Mayor Jim’s Weblog

I met today with the race organizers from several races and with Deputy Thompson from the police department  It was a very cordial and friendly meeting. 

Everyone was in agreement that, whenever possible, we will use auxillary police to avoid charging for details at road races.  The races we have in Haverhill today are charitable races.  We all agreed that if a for profit group wants to run a race to make money, they should be treated differently than a group raising money for charity.

We also agreed that there will be an application form, that road race organizers will give the city at least 30 days to review the race route to make certain it is a safe route and that the police chief has the final authority to determine safety at races and, for that matter, on Haverhill streets in general. 

Everyone there went out of there way to praise the Haverhill police for their past cooperation on road races.

We have more to do, and follow up meeting to be scheduled soon, but it appears we are on our way towards developing a policy we can all live with.  Overall , it was a great meeting!

JIm