By JOHN KOZIOL

Staff Writer

LACONIA — Members of the city’s Motorcycle Week Advisory Committee came away with mostly positive impressions from this year’s rally as well as a slew of suggestions, complaints and observations.

The committee met on Thursday and the members shared among themselves the good, the bad and the interesting that they encountered in their forays into Bike Week 2003 which took place from June 7-15.

The committee later also approved the creation of seven subcommittees to address the various charges given to it by the City Council and voted to hold a hearing at a yet to be determined date to solicit public input.

Established by the council last November to look objectively at all facets of the rally, the committee is made up of Jim Baird from Ward 1; Brenda Schmucker, Ward 2; Sharon Fleischman, Ward 3; James Joyal, Ward 4; Richard Heinis, Ward 5; and Linda Peary, Ward 6.

Peter Brunette, the committee’s at-large member, is also its chairman.

Fleischman got the discussion going on Thursday, saying her own take and that of many people she spoke to during Bike Week was that the 2003 rally was a good one.

"I have nothing bad to say," Fleischman said, although she noted several Bike Week visitors complained to her about long lines at the beer tents.

Peary bemoaned the "lost opportunities" that the city had during Bike Week to boost its bottomline through tie-ins.

Few people knew about the appearance in nearby Meredith of a family member of one of the founders of the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Co., she said, or of the Discovery Channel doing some filming at the Weirs Beach Lobster Pound.

Peary said one of the principals behind Orange County Choppers — the stars of the Discovery Channel’s American Chopper series — said he would be happy to collaborate on an event with the city in the future.

Among suggestions she heard from rally patrons, one involved moving Rally Headquarters to where they would be more visible, said Peary; when it was his turn to speak, Brunette said someone recommended moving the headquarters to downtown Laconia.

Peary said she found staffers at Rally Headquarters to be uninformed about information that Bike Week patrons wanted to know, such as how to get to Meredith Harley-Davidson.

Of that business in particular, Peary said it was widely reported that Meredith Harley-Davidson was actively pursuing vendors for its new location on Route 3 for the next Bike Week. If vendors left The Weirs for Meredith, the city’s vendor license fee revenue could suffer, she said.

As for city-based businesses, they do not want to see Bike Week shortened, said Peary, because now all nine days of the rally generate good revenues.

One groups of rally-goers comes up for the first weekend and stays into midweek, she said, while a second group rolls in on Thursday and departs on Sunday.

Congestion caused by motor vehicle traffic is a problem during Bike Week, said Schmucker, as is the safety of pedestrians crossing Route 3 in the area of the Weirs Beach Water Slide.

Heinis, who works for Lakes Region Mutual Aid, cautioned that the relatively-problem free Bike Week 2003 and its immediate predecessor, may have been timid compared to previous rallies because the weather has not been entirely cooperative.

Warm temperatures and clear, dry conditions bring out many more people, who when they consume alcohol, get into more mishaps than when the weather is poor and they’re confined to the indoors, said Heinis.

Baird said a number of people suggested that the city try to find a way to make bikers pay to park on Lakeside Avenue. Also, to attract visitors away from Weirs Beach, the city should host a concert or even a professional wrestling match, he added.

Vendors that he spoke to are complaining that property owners are charging them too much rent for Bike Week, Baird continued, while another negative, and one "that I must have heard a thousand times," is the poor condition of roads in The Weirs, especially Scenic Road.