With the fall community-wide yard sale taking place in Mill Creek on Saturday, residents can expect delays getting in and out of their neighborhoods, and local police say they will do all they can to ensure drivers won’t get snarled in excessive congestion.
In years past, the city and Mill Creek Police Department put up traffic control signs and paid for officer overtime to manage the traffic flow in and out of the city and its many neighborhoods. But that funding was eliminated by the City Council after Initiative 695 was approved by voters in 1999, police chief Bob Crannell and City Council member Dale Hensley said.
“I don’t blame the Council at all. They had to make decisions on what to cut,” Crannell said. “We just do the best we can with what we have.”
The biggest concern police have is emergency access into neighborhoods should a serious crime, residential fire or medical emergency take place. But Crannell says the most his officers can do is ticket cars for parking violations and impound vehicles that are double-parked or blocking fire lanes.
The issue of managing traffic flow during the twice-yearly garage sale is a long-standing one. Part of the problem lies in that the event is not sponsored by any one organization, such as the city or Mill Creek Community Association.
The city of Mill Creek, however, hasn’t taken any steps the last few years to come up with a traffic control plan for the yard sales. There also apparently isn’t much of a demand for one from citizens, as no one has come forth to speak about the problem at a Council meeting.
The community association, the homeowners association that covers much of the city of Mill Creek, doesn’t restrict when residents can have yard sales, but it does ban signs advertising them. The tradition of a twice-yearly yard sale began with residents who decided that having all the yard sales on the same day would be an easy way to do it, Mill Creek Community Association executive administrator Mary Ann Bagenstos said. The yard sale is promoted largely on the community association’s Web site and through word-of-mouth from previous shoppers.
“The crowds have seemed to diminish during the last few years,” said Hensley, a resident of Vine Maple. “It’s nowhere near as strong as it used to be. We used to have to one-way streets in the neighborhoods, especially Vine Maple.”
Crannell expects that traffic on Saturday will be particularly crowded in two neighborhoods: Highlands and Springtree. The problem with Highlands, Crannell said, is that 25th Avenue SE. is the only way in and out of the neighborhood. At the spring sale in May, Highlands had several instances of cars double-parked, and officers wrote several tickets.
“Some neighborhoods may need it more than others,” Hensley said.
Springtree, meanwhile, clogs up, particularly early in the day, because that is often the first destination for people who come to Mill Creek for the yard sale from out of the area.
“First thing in the morning they get hit the hardest,” Crannell said.
Police will have a normal daytime allotment of officers working – two or three officers on duty – to manage traffic and patrol the city on Saturday.
“If things get out of hand, the officers can call someone in,” Crannell said. “But it’ll likely be spread out after the morning rush.”
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