Gone country
Town calms fears on festival



GUILDERLAND — Countryfest is back on track for Altamont next month.

The event’s organizers are expecting to get a finalized traffic study from the engineering firm Clough Harbor and Associates today. The plans were created to alleviate village congestion and parking problems for the event, according to the WGNA marketing director, Salena Dutcher.

The required mass-gathering permit application is now moving forward in Town Hall.

At last week’s town board meeting, a group of Altamont residents lobbied against the event, which they said disrupted the village last year, attracting an estimated 30,000 people to the Altamont fairgrounds. The fair’s manager told The Enterprise such money-makers are vital to the fair’s survival.
Dutcher has said Countryfest is the largest one-day country music festival in the Northeast and described it as a "great family event."

Listening to a handful of village residents concerned about the festival returning to Altamont this July, Supervisor Kenneth Runion with Lieutenant Curtis Cox of the Guilderland Police held an informal meeting yesterday at Town Hall.

About 10 people attended, including members from the Altamont Fair’s board of directors, village residents, WGNA representatives, and the retired village police chief, George Pratt. The Village of Altamont Neighborhood Association president and founder, Norman Bauman, who had raised objections last week, was also present.
"Early on, WGNA contacted the town to coordinate issues," Cox told the small group. "We’ve taken the plans from last year and had to fine-tune them."
Cox said the new traffic plans will have "contingency options" and that emergency medical services will be putting up "a high profile program" with at least three full-time doctors on hand.
The lieutenant told residents that, after talking with Dutcher, the first draft of plans for the event "look good." The plans also include increasing the numbers of portable toilets from 50 to 250, increasing the number of shuttle buses, and adding off-site satellite parking, Dutcher said.

The traffic study completed today will be shared with the town supervisor and the state’s Department of Transportation, Dutcher said.

A town-wide fire coordinator will direct the various local fire departments and State Police, Albany County Sheriff’s Department, Guilderland Police, and Altamont Police, which will all work together during Countryfest, according to Cox.

Fire apparatus is also expected to be placed along the fair routes to ensure proximity and quick response times for any emergency, Cox told residents.

Solving problems

Residents’ concerns reported by The Enterprise last week were all addressed by Runion; Cox; Dutcher; and the fair’s manager, Marie McMillen.

Some of the concerns included traffic and safety issues, public drunkenness and public urination, alcohol, noise, garbage left behind, and people camping on the fairgrounds before and after the event.

Residents were reassured that the fairgrounds and WGNA are paying for any costs associated with Countryfest.

Runion said the problem last year wasn’t the volume of cars on the road, but how quickly they could be parked. Between 1,000 and 1,200 cars per hour came into the village last year, he said, but only between 300 and 400 cars per hour could be parked.
"The method of parking has changed this year"Last year, they filled up one lot then filled up another," Runion said. "This year, with multiple parking sites at once, it will change the formula to 1,000 cars per hour."

The town is expecting about 10,000 cars to come into the village next month for Countryfest, Runion said, with the peak traffic hours being between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m.
"It’s our ultimate goal that this year no car, if they follow the signs, will go through the village at all," Cox said at the meeting. "The idea is that we don’t want any cars going through the village."
"Once you’re in the fairgrounds, you’re in there for the duration. Once you leave, you can’t come back and you go home," Runion added.

Dutcher also said that last year’s problem with counterfeiting tickets, which also caused delays at Countryfest, will not reoccur because of a new ticketing system.
"Learning from our prior mistakes, things should move along much more smoothly," Runion said, but added, "Noise is something that is harder to control." Countryfest will be over by 7 p.m. and, with it, Runion said, the noise.
John Abbruzzese, a member of the fair’s board of directors, said "The Altamont Fair is a natural resource," and that its 140 acres of buildings and lots require a lot of capital to maintain.

Abbruzzese told residents that his board upholds community standards.
He cited turning down the University at Albany’s Parkfest because it was offensive and not "family friendly," even though its organizers offered the fair what he termed "an obscene amount of money."

Pratt agreed with Abbruzzese and said he supported the fairgrounds and therefore Countryfest.
"I came here because I read in the paper you were going to bring 200 people against it," Pratt said to Bauman at the meeting, referring to Bauman’s comments at last week’s town board meeting, reported in The Enterprise. "I don’t see them."
"The newspaper was in error," Bauman replied, denying a quote from the televised meeting. He went on later to critique The Enterprise story, headlined, "Villagers want to unplug Countryfest": "The word ‘unplugged’ was not our word"We have no intention of unplugging anything."
Abbruzzese quipped, "Why don’t you guys just wrestle and get it over with""