By JOHN KOZIOL

Staff Writer

LACONIA — Although it got shot down on Monday, a municipal Bike Week study committee is not dead, said Ward 6 Councilor Armand Bolduc, who is expected to introduce a motion to form the committee at the Oct. 15 meeting of the City Council.

On Tuesday, Bolduc said he is still working through exactly what the committee will look like, but the bottom line for him is that there should be one.

At Monday’s City Council, Bolduc was one of four councilors who voted against creating a 13-member Bike Week committee that was proposed by Mayor Mark Fraser.

The mayor envisioned having an ad hoc advisory committee made up of a member of the Laconia Police Commission, a Belknap County commissioner, six residents, three business people from Laconia, and/or neighboring communities, and one representative each from the Greater Laconia-Weirs Beach Chamber of Commerce and the Laconia Motorcycle Week Rally and Race Association.

Two city councilors would sit on the committee as non-voting members.

Several of the councilors who eventually voted against Fraser’s plan raised concerns about the committee not being objective enough and were in favor of a committee made up only of citizens who did not have preconceived notions about Bike Week.

The effort to form the committee is part of the ongoing fallout from a controversial Bike Week 2002 which saw Bike Week supporters blast law enforcement and the media for hyping up the threat of violence among motorcycle gangs at the event.

Responding to that potential violence, Attorney General Philip T. McLaughlin then asked the State Liquor Commission to withhold Bike Week beer tent licenses. The commission did so at the last minute, but then reversed itself when a compromise on the number of patrons who would be admitted into the tents at one time was reached with several applicants.

The ill-feeling generated among Bike Week supporters by those actions was preceded by then Laconia Police Chief William Baker’s unsuccessful efforts to create a gun-free zone in The Weirs during Bike Week and the city Licensing Board’s refusal to grant vending permits to the Hells Angels for reasons of public safety. The state Supreme Court, however, overturned the board’s decision.

While those events raised the dander of Bike Week supporters, some of whom testified at Monday’s City Council meeting against forming a Bike Week committee, there was also a call from residents, some city councilors and the Belknap County Commission to look at curbing or correcting some of Bike Week’s perceived shortcomings.

Among those shortcomings were that maybe Bike Week had grown too large, too fast, and was giving Laconia a bad reputation as well as it being a drain on municipal and county resources.

There were calls to shorten the event from its current nine days and also to hold a citywide referendum on Bike Week’s future.

Finally, there was also the suggestion to create a municipal Bike Week committee to examine all the various issues surrounding the event and to come up with ways of making Bike Week better.

Fraser on Tuesday said that in retrospect, he should have instructed the City Council on Monday to vote first on whether a Bike Week committee should be formed and then to vote separately on its configuration.

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