As the 7th annual FloydFest gets underway today, one of the things you will not see this weekend, unlike last year, is the over abundance of law enforcement officers from the National Park Service.

As you may remember, last year’s event stirred up a lot of controversy over the presence of the Criminal Interdiction Team and other officers connected with the National Park Service, who many believed were profiling the festival attendees and were over-zealous in making traffic stops.

One of those citizens who was pulled over last year by the park rangers was Floyd County Sheriff Shannon Zeman.

Following last year’s FloydFest, festival organizers, festival attendees and others voiced their concerns to Congressman Rick Boucher, who later met with the National Park Service.

According to the National Park Service, the interdiction team will not be present this year. They stated the lack of manpower, along with last year’s complaints, as the reason.

They did point out that the interdiction team was a major factor in reducing accidents along the parkway.  There were 277 accidents in 2005 compared to 445 in 2002.

In 2008, there have already been 232 accidents with five of those resulting in fatalities.

The Virginia State Police will have a presence at this year’s event along the roadways to FloydFest, according to Sgt. Robert J. Carpentieri, Public Information Officer for the Salem Division, which oversees Floyd County.

“We will have Troopers assigned there to provide traffic control,” said Sgt. Carpentieri Thursday morning.

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