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VALLEY — The Valley City Council at its Thursday meeting denied a request for a Valley High alumni group to host a picnic at the city-owned Shawmut airport site.

An alumni picnic took place on the same site last year and drew lots of complaints from Todd Addition residents of cars driving too fast on 12th Avenue, loud music emanating from the site and way too many people for an alumni event.

Allison Banks-Trimble made the request on behalf of the alumni group. Following the denial, Banks-Trimble said she’d like to have an alumni gathering next year at another location in the city and was willing to work with city officials on scaling down what happened last year.

“We just had too many problems with what happened there last year,” Mayor Leonard Riley told her. “There was probably 1,000 people there. That’s way too many for an alumni picnic.”

The mayor asked Police Chief Mike Reynolds to discuss what his department had to deal with at last year’s picnic.

“We got many complaints from the nearby neighborhood of cars racing up and down the streets and loud music coming from the site,” he said. “Our officers told the deejay to turn it down, and he did before boosting it back up again. When one of our officers stopped a motorist who was driving too fast, he was almost hit by another car that was speeding.”

Council Member Randall Maddux, who represents the area on the council, said he had 18 pages of complaints about the event from residents of his District.

Riley asked Chief Reynolds his opinion on having a picnic at the same site this year.

“No,” he said. “If you’re going to have that many people back there again this year, we’d be concerned about the same kind of behavior, fast driving in the neighborhood and really loud music.”

“We will work with you next year to find a good place in the city to host this event,” Riley told Banks-Trimble. “We want such events for alumni and spouses. We don’t want everyone and his brother coming down through that neighborhood.”