Update: The town of Vernon has denied Woodstock 50′s request to hold the festival at Vernon Downs.

Vernon, N.Y. -- The Oneida County sheriff told a crowd of about 100 people Monday night that he can’t guarantee the safety of the public if Woodstock 50 is held at Vernon Downs.

With just 38 days to go before the festival’s planned opening date of Aug. 16, Sheriff Robert Maciol said at a Vernon town board meeting, there isn’t enough time to plan properly for a festival that will draw 65,000 people to the track in mostly rural Vernon.

“It is impossible to ensure the safety of the public at this point,” Maciol told the largely anti-concert crowd. “If you’re asking me right now, I’m not confident in saying the public will be safe.”

Police, emergency managers and ambulance company owners all told a similar story: A festival of this magnitude needs at least a year of planning, not a couple of months. Vernon Downs filed an application with the town on June 18.

“Any emergency management director will say there isn’t enough time to do this properly,” said Kevin Revere, the emergency management director for Oneida County. “The less time you have to plan this stuff, the margin of error goes up tremendously.”

The festival, expected to bring up to 65,000 people to the track about 40 miles east of Syracuse, is planned for Aug. 16 to 18. Promoters say they want to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first iconic Woodstock concert.

This year’s festival, originally planned for Watkins Glen, faces other, potentially insurmountable hurdles. Vernon town law requires an application for a temporary event permit be filed at least 120 days in advance. The application wasn’t filed until June 18, which was only 59 days before the opening day of the festival.

Town attorney Vince Rossi said after the meeting he had only learned of the application Monday morning and hadn’t had time to research the law. Town Codes Enforcement Officer Jody Thieme said he was aware of the 120-day deadline, but said that Woodstock 50 didn’t have that much time after the Watkins Glen deal fell apart.

Neither Rossi not Thieme cited a section of town law that allows the deadline to be waived.

According to town law, the final decision on the permit rests with Thieme.

Three representatives from Woodstock 50 attended the meeting and answered questions. The main spokesperson, Susan Cronin, said the festival will only be held if all approvals are granted and concerns are addressed.

“We’re applying for the permits now, and it’s up to the town and the people who live here,” Cronin said. “We’re not asking to do anything illegal. We simply would like a fair shot.”

Cronin said there will be no camping on site, so all 65,000 concert-goers would leave each night of the three-day festival and return the next day. The three-day festival will actually be considered three separate one-day festivals, she said.

By eliminating camping, Woodstock 50 also doesn’t need to pursue its June 21 application for a “mass gathering permit” from the state, said health department spokeswoman Erin Silk. A mass gathering is defined as 5,000 people who stay at least 24 hours, and that permit would have required Woodstock 50 to submit plans for traffic control and parking, drinking water, toilets and sewage disposal, sleeping areas, food service, medical facilities, fire protection, mosquito control and “such other matters as may be appropriate for security of life or health,” according to state law.

Woodstock can now avoid the “mass gathering” label and instead apply for a potentially less stringent “public gathering” permit. That permit requires the festival to seek health department approval on emergency medical services specifically, and “can require any supplemental plans, reports, and specifications because of concerns raised by the specific circumstances pertaining to the event," according to that section of the law.

Woodstock and Vernon Downs still must file plans for traffic, parking, sanitation, water supplies, security, lighting and first aid to get the local permit from the town of Vernon.

Police and residents blasted the idea of trying to get all 65,000 people in and out of the festival every day and night for three days. That’s a recipe for gridlock and illegal camping on farms and lawns of the largely rural community, residents said.

“Area hotels are booked that weekend,” said resident Sandra Clark. “Where are they all going to go?”

Joe D’Agostino, mayor of the village of Vernon, said previous festivals at the track such as K-Rockathon had about 30,000 people -- and plenty of problems.

“We had half the people expected here, and we were backed up 15 to 20 miles on the Thruway in both directions,” D’Agostino said. "Their traffic management plan is naive at best."

The specter of Woodstock ’99, which drew more than 200,000 people to Griffiss Air Force Base, in nearby Rome, hung over the meeting. That three-day festival went down in flames and rioting on the final night in July 1999.

“This whole idea is crazy,” said resident Scott Faulkner. “Did we not learn anything from the concert in ’99 at Griffiss?”

Cronin assured residents that the Woodstock team had indeed learned lessons from Woodstock ’99, and that this festival would be much smaller and more manageable.

“A lot of concerns stem from Woodstock ’99, and we clearly do not want a repeat of what happened then,” she said. “This event at 65,000 would be about 25 percent of 1999. The scale is very different.”

The commander for state police Troop D, based in Oneida, said he would have to call in 200 to 300 additional troopers for the festival. Major Philip Rougeux said he would submit comments today on the Woodstock 50 traffic plan.

“They will get a list of our concerns tomorrow, and it’s up to them to deal with those concerns,” Rougeux said.

Rougeux worked on the traffic plan for Woodstock ’99, which he said took months of planning. “It was all I did from February on,” he said.

Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente said the application was filed too late to thoroughly review.

“We’re being asked to do something that really does take at least a year of planning,” Picente told Syracuse.com last week.

Cronin said Woodstock 50 is planning to run shuttle buses to off-site parking areas. She said the festival has a tentative agreement with the Oneida Indian Nation to provide parking. The nation runs Turning Stone Resort and Casino, about six miles from Vernon Downs, and owns thousands of acres of land in the region.

Maciol said he is keeping an open mind on the festival, but said the planning is being rushed. The planned festival would fall on the county’s busiest weekend of the year, when the Madison-Bouckville Antiques Fair, Woodsman Field Days and Herkimer County Fair are all happening.

“We should be talking about August 2020, not August 2019,” Macio said.

Woodstock’s principal investor, Dentsu, pulled out in April, slamming the “incompetence” of Woodstock 50 organizers. Promoters lost a court battle to get Dentsu to return $18.9 million. The festival was supposed to be held at Watkins Glen International race track, but the track canceled the contract after Woodstock 50 missed a $150,000 payment, according to news reports.

Woodstock 50 says dozens of popular artists are contracted for the festival, including Jay-Z, Santana, Miley Cyrus, The Killers, Chance the Rapper, John Fogerty, Janelle Monae, Dead & Company, Imagine Dragons, and Halsey. It’s not clear, though, if those artists are still contractually obligated to play a concert at Vernon Downs or anywhere else.