Baldwin City ? During the Baldwin City Council meeting Tuesday night, Mayor Marilyn Pearse used her gavel in an attempt to calm an audience upset with a decision not to approve a special-use permit for a car show, while conceding those in attendance had a point.

The motion to approve a special-use permit for the car show failed for lack of a second to Councilman Steve Bauer’s motion for approval. Had it been approved, the Johnson County-based Rusty Metal Productions would have organized a downtown car show in June, as it did in 2015 and 2016 in association with the Baldwin City Chamber of Commerce.

Both prior years, council members have objected to the show’s “Pistons ‘N’ Pinups” name, promotional material depicting a pinup, and a pinup contest that was part of the event. A year ago, Councilman David Simmons joined in those objections, but put aside his concerns to vote for a permit, which passed when Councilwomen Christi Darnell and Kathy Gerstner both abstained from voting on the special-use permit.

Gerstner restated her position Tuesday during the debate that followed the motion’s failure. She was against the name, not the car show, and she encouraged organizers to come up with another name for the event. She said she had relayed her objections to Scott Holmes during a meeting in October.

Supporters of the car show at the meeting said the double-meanings council members attached to the car show’s name were of their own making. Supporter Staci Simpson said the pinup contest the council members viewed as objectifying women was seen by others as empowering.

In his emotional defense of the council’s position, Councilman Tony Brown said the city had the right to protect its image because it would have no control over how those outside of the community would interpret the name or promotional material.

“Sex sells, but not in my house,” he said.

From his seat in the audience, supporter Bryan Pitts responded to the council’s action with the accusation that it was ignoring the will of the people. More than 80 percent of the city’s business owners signed a petition in support of the car show, he said.

The council was also hurting the city and its businesses economically, Pitts said. The one-day show brought more visitors to the community than anything other than the Maple Leaf Festival, he said.

Rusty Metal partner Joe Stutsman said those visitors and their money would follow the car show to another community. He was unwilling, he said, to change the name of the car show when Rusty Metal was invited to the community two years ago with the Pistons ‘N’ Pinups name and the use of promotional material council members found objectionable.

Stutsman said Rusty Metal has donated money to the city the past two years and cleaned up downtown after the show.

As she tried to bring order to the debate, Pearse said there was some justification to the charge that the council wasn’t listening to citizens on the matter. Tuesday’s nonaction on the permit request was in contrast to its decision last month to delay for two weeks approval of a development plan for a new public works headquarters in the city’s Orange Street yard because of the objections of one neighbor at the meeting and a petition signed by three people, she said.

That issue was resolved at Tuesday’s meeting. The project’s architect, Jay Zimmerschied, of Lawrence, said meetings with a neighbor improved the plan without adding significant costs. The access road to a parking lot in front of the new building was moved to the west, and tree screenings had been extended farther to the north and to the east of the new facility. The council approved the new plans.

In other business, the council approved a measure that amended an ordinance from September 2016, which put in place a 2.5 percent franchise fee at that time and would have added another 2.5 percent in September 2017. Tuesday’s action will make the second 2.5 percent fee effective with the next billing cycle.