Casper Council Agrees to Pay Police Costs for Motorcycle Parade

At the Casper City Council meeting on Tuesday, the council agreed to pay the cost of police overtime for a motorcycle awareness parade in May.

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The parade, organized by Wyoming Central A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactment (ABATE), has been going on for the past 40 years and had run into an issue this year when the city wanted them to pay for the overtime costs of police and for liability insurance.

Wyoming Central ABATE had put a post on their Facebook page the day before to remind their members to show up in support of ABATE.

And at the meeting they did, with the room packed with dozens of people from various biker groups who came to speak out against the attempt by the city to get them to pay.

Several members representing the motorcycle groups came up to speak about how important the event is, the types of charity they provide to the community, and the difficulty they would have in paying for the overtime.

Brenda Sanders, an event coordinator with Guardians of the Children, said that she wished they had heard about possible grant funding ahead of time.

"I'm just asking you, if there's some kind of grant or if you can give us some answers on how much it's supposed to cost, then, like Milage said, we can start planning this in January and not two weeks before the ride," Sanders said.

City Attorney John Henley said that while it is possible for the city to only pay for half the overtime, as Mayor Ray Pacheco originally suggested because the amount was only around $1,000, it wouldn't be an issue for the city to cover the cost this time.

In spite of that, Vice Mayor Steve Freel wanted to stress that although they are covering the costs this time, they wanted to make sure that when there is another motorcycle parade in September, ABATE would seek grant funding beforehand.

After the meeting, ABATE posted to their Facebook page thanking the city council for hearing them out and covering the May 7 awareness parade.