Staff Writer

LACONIA — A municipal Bike Week Committee could be in operation as soon as May, Mayor Mark Fraser told the City Council on Monday. Thirteen people have expressed interest in serving on the seven-member body.

To date, one resident from Wards 1, 4 and 5, two each from Wards 2 and 3 and six from Ward 6 have said they would like to serve on the committee, said Fraser. He later set April 1 as the deadline by which all other applications must be received by the council.

The mayor said he would like the council to begin interviewing candidates for the Bike Week committee in April and to appoint its members shortly thereafter so the committee could begin its mission of studying Bike Week in May.

When it established the committee last November, the council decided that the committee would have seven members — one from each of the city’s six wards, plus a seventh person who would be chosen at-large.

Ward 3 Councilor Fred Toll, who introduced the motion to form the committee, said on Monday it was his intent that the seven committee members would elect their own chairman.

Toll made his remarks after questions arose as to whether the at-large committee member would be chosen from the pool of all interested candidates who hadn’t been appointed as ward representatives and whether that individual would also act as chair.

Fraser told the council members that they could always go back to the original motion that created the Bike Week committee to also specify how its chairperson is chosen.

The committee is charged with looking objectively at Bike Week and "its impact on the city public relations and infrastructure;" whether it was "in the city’s best interest" to assume responsibility for Bike Week and also whether its nine-day duration should be changed.

The committee was also instructed to create a better relationship with businesses and to find alternative sources, other than the city, county and state, to pay for the costs of Bike Week.