Judge rules against festival

PALMER — If organizers want to stay on the good side of a state judge, the Trapper Creek Bluegrass Festival is going to need to get a permit this year.

Superior Court Judge Kari Kristiansen issued her order last week.

But the Mat-Su Borough says that as of Thursday, the festival has not applied for a permit.

The borough requires 90 days to process one, which spells trouble for the event advertised for May 27.

“This is in direct response to citizen complaints,” Borough Attorney Nicholas Spiropoulos says in a borough press statement.

The festival was the site of a hit-and-run accident that nearly killed a Texas man in 2009. Aaron Dorfman was sleeping in a field when Rodney Humphrey, 49, drove over him in his Ford Ranger pickup.

Humphrey was put on trial for murder but the jury deadlocked on the attempted murder, assault and drunken driving charges, choosing only to convict him of leaving the scene of an accident and driving without a license. Humphrey has since reached a plea agreement and is scheduled for sentencing late next month.

Prosecutors at his trial alleged that Humphrey, who lived in the area, saw the festival-goers as outsiders he wanted to leave.

In its lawsuit over the permit issue, the borough submitted comments from neighbors who also didn’t appreciate the festival.

“We have to take time off work because it’s too awful to travel through this gauntlet of drunk druggies who are sometimes naked, and all their dogs,” one of them said, according to the borough’s press release.

The borough filed a lawsuit against the festival’s organizer, Justin Rousseau, over the permit issue last month. Kristiansen’s order doesn’t end the legal proceedings but does give the borough the ability to ask Alaska State Troopers for help if the festival goes on as planned without a permit.

The borough requires a permit for any event that attracts more than 500 people. Borough estimates put attendance for a 2010 festival at 1,500. With the permit, event organizers are required to provide things like bathrooms, trash pick up, parking, insurance, fire protection, emergency medical services and security.

To get the order, the borough had to prove to Kristiansen that it would likely win the lawsuit and that Rousseau was likely to violate the permit rules again this year. Kristiansen’s order requires that Rousseau not hold a festival without a permit until the court case is settled and that he needs to prove to the borough he hasn’t.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.