Welcome to our special Halloween episode. Typically, this is when we do the, we're on the off week, so we typically preview the episode that's coming up next week. But, I figured since this one falls on Halloween that we would do something somewhat appropriate.

six six six Hang on. This is actually episode 37, I believe. Almost everything that guy just said is incorrect. This is Municipal Equation, a podcast about cities and towns and changing times. Comes from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. And this will be just kind of a miniature episode, just a quick one for the listeners of Municipal Equation on this very Halloween twenty seventeen as you're either getting your kids dressed up to go trick or treating or getting yourself all dressed up, or have you already celebrated Halloween, like days ago? You might recall in episode 30, it was just before that crazy eclipse that captivated the entire country. You might recall that there were people who thought that the mayor of Franklin, North Carolina, Bob Scott, possessed at least one supernatural

People give you a lot of credit. Yeah. His town was in the path of totality, and there were all kinds of festivities set up in town for watching the eclipse as it arrived that Monday, August 21. He's a good good mayor, but his powers only go so far to move an eclipse. And I would say the same thing goes for scheduling Halloween because we all know Halloween comes just once a year, October 31. But that's actually not the case.

Good morning. This is Leslie. Leslie Flynn is the communications coordinator for the city of Oak Creek, Wisconsin. A southern suburb of city of Milwaukee. We're in Milwaukee County. Our population is about 35,000.

And one thing it has in common with a lot of cities around the country is that it its local government actually regulates when Halloween takes place, specifically when trick or treating takes place. That can be kind of controversial. How does Halloween tie in with with with what you do as a as a government official? And when do you so you said you manage start hearing from people about Halloween and what government needs to do about it?

We, traditionally, are, we have a celebrations commission, and they are the ones that that establish the the date and time for our trick or treating, celebration. K. And it's always based on the feedback of the residents. Our aldermen hear a lot of comments about, when it should be and how it should be. Traditionally, in in the city of Oak Creek, always on a Sunday afternoon, you know, usually when it's starting to get dark to just after dark. So it's usually been two hours on a Sunday afternoon. Right. Over over time, we found that neighborhoods were starting to have their own, trick or treat times that they would establish for for their specific subdivisions that would be on Halloween or maybe on Saturday or or something. So they would kind of do their own thing. And then Yeah. We got residents that were like, well, I live in the subdivision. I wanna do the citywide one. How do I have to do both? So there that became sort of the that's when we started looking at it because there was sort of this, breakaway with with certain neighborhoods that wanted to do their own thing. A lot of people didn't like that it was on, Sunday afternoons because there might have been a conflict with our Green Bay Packer football games. So that's a big deal around here, you know. So that was, people started kinda just doing their own thing, and and we heard a lot of feedback about that. So sometimes you get lucky in in the, Halloween holidays over weekend, and then you don't have to worry about it. But we always would try to stick it to the the closest to Halloween.

So this topic was actually in conversation

This whole Halloween thing is fascinating to me. There's now these controversial costumes. Have you did you see this? So you've got a rationale for holding Halloween on a day other than October 31, unless it's on a weekend. But then you've got to deal with all the Halloween purists and sometimes they can be kind of vocal. Traditionalists who wanna have it on Halloween. They're the the fun, the tradition, the history of going out at nighttime on Halloween night proper. And last year, even though October 31 was a Monday, the city of Oak Creek tried it out. Let's hold Halloween

on Halloween night. Because there's so much feedback, we were gonna try to actually have a trigger tweet on Halloween Uh-huh. In the evening. So we had it from five to seven, thinking we were doing a good thing because of all the comments that we had gotten about, hey. Why don't you have it on all the and then it was, we got a lot of negative feedback. So, because we had it from five to seven, and people are like, that's a school night. We're not home from work by then. We haven't fed the kids. So there was a lot of, like you know, I didn't at that point, we're like, alright. We'll back up. And, so we moved it back to the traditional Sunday, from I think it's five or four to six this year. So kind of back to that traditional time slot. And we still are getting people grumbling. But back to the original question, as soon as we post it on social media, generally, that's when, people all of a sudden notice that they should comment on it. But it's been posted on our website for months. So

but So I asked Leslie how it's done. Like, who actually makes the decision to move Halloween? Is it the town council? And the answer is yes. The town council does it. They, you know, they solicit public comment. So how do you handle and I I don't even know if if you have to, but, you know, with with an ordinance in place, do you have, a pocket of resistance in town who still chooses to, to use October 31 no matter what day it falls on? Yes. Just okay. Well, how do you what what's how do you deal with that?

In those would be, like, the neighborhoods that decide to have their own. Sure. You know? And and we don't regulate that. I I think if you ask our police department, they may have an opinion about how, you know, if they would prefer that not happen. You know, that's already, when I posted this year's trick or treat times, people were saying, hey. But my neighborhood's doing it actually on Saturday night this year. So, again, they're doing their own thing, not on Halloween. Right. But it becomes, you know, confusing, I think, to, you know, people. So yeah. And from a public safety standpoint, I think, you know, the police would like to say, hey. This is what our trick or treat is, and make sure everybody's driving carefully. You know, watch out for kids in costumes.

Okay. So how many kids are gonna be out there? To try to get kind of a a rough estimate, I went to one of my favorite websites, that of the US Census Bureau, which I like to dork out on because they have this really great facts for features section. They have one on Halloween that includes a lot of statistics that the Census Bureau has gathered up over the years. Also includes a little bit of history. I'll just read right off the, the website. It says dating back two thousand years to the Celtic festival of Samhain, Halloween is an ancient tradition associated with images of witches, ghosts, and vampires. Today, Halloween has evolved into a celebration characterized by child friendly activities, like trick or treating, carving pumpkins into jack o'-lanterns, and dressing in costumes. I think we knew that part. So I'm gonna scroll down to the first number I get to. That's 41,100,000. That's the estimated number of potential trick or treaters. That's a number from twenty fifteen, and it counts kids ages five to 14. Of course, it skips over the kids who are age 15 and older, who grab handfuls of candy and sometimes don't wear costumes when they do that. I don't know how I feel about that. And, actually, the the town of Holly Springs, North Carolina, their leadership just passed a resolution kinda putting emphasis on kids who are, you know, age 12 and younger when it comes to, you know, being out trick or treating. Like, that wasn't an actual resolution that the town's leadership passed. You know, it's just guidelines, more of a comment. But as we were saying before, there there are municipalities all over the country that have, you know, actual enforceable rules when it comes to Halloween and their corporate limits. But, scrolling down, 118,800,000. That's the number of occupied housing units across the nation, first quarter twenty seventeen. All potential stops for trick or treaters. Just reading off the Census Bureau's website right now. Oh, okay. 66,600,000. That's the number of housing units where trick or treaters had to climb steps in order to fill their bags full of candy in 2015. I kinda feel like the Census Bureau kinda stretched to make that number work, but I appreciate it. 78.7, that's the percentage of US households that agreed their neighbors could be trusted in 2013. 17.3% on the flip side, that's the percentage of US households who think their neighborhood has a lot of petty crime. K. Scrolling down. Again, just reading off the Census Bureau's website, hauntingly delicious. It says, 39,815. That's the number of people employed by The US manufacturing establishments that produce chocolate and cocoa products in 2015. This industry's value of shipments totaled $17,200,000,000. That's up from $16,000,000,000 in 2014. Okay. So this is cool because this gets into, our stock and trade of municipalities. Places to spend Halloween. This says places around the country that may put you in the Halloween mood. Tombstone, Arizona, Sleepy Hollow, New York, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. I was just there recently. I don't know if I'd give this one. It says Yellville, Arkansas. I don't know. Transylvania County, North Carolina. Slaughter Beach, Delaware. Casper, Wyoming. Very funny. Scarrville, Iowa. And then one you've definitely heard of, Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico. If I could add one more from my own personal experience, I grew up in a region of North Carolina called the Cape Fear. Okay. A few more quick numbers. $12,400,000. That's the value of US imports of pumpkins in 2016. 03/2002, the number of broom, brush, and mop, and casket manufacturing establishments for the more authentic witches and vampires. K. There's a few more numbers on here. I'm gonna post this to the show notes at soundcloud.com/municipalequation. Not sure if I answered the question of how many kids are gonna be out there, but the number of potential trick or treaters could be somewhere around 41, 42,000,000. Alright. So when we talked with Leslie from Oak Creek, we kinda got the impression that scheduling trick or treating was kind of about the, you know, for the sake of organization, and public safety and kind of doing everything as a group. But what about the cities and towns that that don't schedule Halloween, don't regulate it really in any way other than from a public safety law enforcement kind of standpoint. I called up one of my favorite police chiefs, Laura Fonstock of Fuquay Varina, North Carolina. We talked about what her officers do on Halloween. And then you'll hear us get to something that I might or might not have done when I was a kid. And to give you a hint, it might have involved eggs. But we start out talking about something she sees year in and year out on Halloween.

I see parents that will load up their cars with children, and then the parents will stay in the car and then let their children get out to run to house to house. Mhmm. And this does is I see children that are running across street, and they're not paying attention to safely crossing the roadway. And without parental supervision and you have children under the age of 12, it's just a recipe for a disaster. So we wanna make sure that parents park in a safe location, get out and walk with your kids, stay in your neighborhood, or pick that one safe neighborhood, and just make sure you've parked ahead of time and walk with your children. The main thing is is that we can't have children running across the the street for a piece of candy without being aware of safety. It's it's dangerous, and we don't want anyone getting harmed, on Halloween.

So with your officers, out and and about on the streets, do you guys do sort of real time advice, as as you see something wrong? Or, you know, how involved are your officers during, you know, the actual Halloween, activities?

We have about five to 600 children and their parents that stop by our commercial establishments, our businesses, and even the police department, to to pick up a treat, and they're wearing their costumes during the day. Mhmm. And during that time, we have parents and children that stop by the police department, and we're educating them and passing out safety information and even reflective tape or armband, to pass out. And then I have one of my officers that's on Segway, and we have officers on foot patrol. And they use this opportunity. If they see individuals that are actually using the crosswalks, we we tell them, hey. Thanks for for doing that. And if we see someone that's not following the the rules of the roadway and our pedestrian crossings, we Halloween night, we have increased officer presence within our neighborhood. And if we have to conduct traffic stops, we do so. But we try to get out of the car as well as part of our community policing philosophy to engage the public in positive ways. And if we can educate as well, when we see issues that pop up, we address them as well.

And, you know, sometimes Halloween ends up being kinda like a, quote, unquote fun night for some of the older, or more more teenage kids. Just to answer this, is it ever okay to egg somebody's house?

No. That that goes into a damage to property, a vandalism type issue. And, if eggs do damage scratch glass or paint or cause some other kind of damage. Yes. That is a violation of the law. It is a damage to property, charge potentially in the state of North Carolina. And, then I'll say it's all fun and games until the cops show up and tell everybody criminal charges and a trip to the jail are are not a joke. We want everybody to have a fun and safe Halloween, but not at the extent of hurting anyone.

Is there anything I haven't asked about that you think is important?

I would say that as a preemptive measure about the eggs that you just mentioned Mhmm. I would recommend that local law enforcement contact some of your grocery stores ahead of time and let them know, hey. If you see teams ahead of time going in and attempting to purchase mass quantities of eggs, they can work with us and they can deny sales, or they can let us know, hey. We we have this situation. You need to be aware of it. So that at least we can go at least attempt to go talk to the teenagers or their parents to take a preemptive strike, so to speak, to prevent that egging from occurring in the community. That also applies to mass quantities of, toilet paper. Mhmm. We also you see that from time to time. Somebody has toilet paper, some trees, or yards. The main thing is is that we try to encourage our community to be vigilant, to look out for one another. If they see something, say something. If they see any kind of illegal or, dangerous situation occurring in their community, contact your local law enforcement. That's what we're here for. We'd much rather address something ahead of time than to have an accident occurring. So if you have information, please call your local law enforcement, and we we encourage that here in the town of Peup Wave Arena.

Alright. Alright. So I'm gonna go ahead and wrap this one up. This was kind of like an obviously light hearted, you know, for the fact that Halloween is falling on a Tuesday when we release episodes. So, gonna let you get to it. But speaking of which, if your city or town and again, maybe you've already celebrated, but if your city or town has a big Halloween downtown gathering, then, send me photos. I'd love to see them. You can tweet them to me at muni equation. That's at m u n I equation and I'll share them. You can also find me on Instagram. You know, tag me there too, Municipal Equation. Just look it up that way. Or you can send me an email, bbrown@nclm.org. And one last thing, if you're still with us, well, for one, thank you for listening and for sticking around. Two, a friend of mine who works in municipal government, he and I were trying to compile a list of our favorite fictional or fictitious mayors from pop culture, literature, comics, whatever. For example, Mayor Goldie Wilson from Back to the Future or, Lenny, the mayor from Ghostbusters. Compiling a list for no other reason than potential Halloween costume ideas for 2018, but making a list for 2018. But making lists is fun anyway. So, send me your ideas. Who are your favorite fictional mayors? At muni equation or bbrown@nclm.org. NCLM stands for North Carolina League of Municipalities, which makes this podcast possible, even lighthearted ones like this. We'll get back to the serious stuff next time. We'll talk to you soon. This is Ben Brown.