It's been a while since Palo Alto has hosted a rodeo, approved a new billiard parlor or welcomed the circus to town, but one wouldn't know that from looking at the city's list of fees.

The city's fee schedule also includes fees for bowling alley licenses ($150 per year), hosting a carnival ($1,925 per day, same as a circus) or establishing a "mechanical amusement device" ($102 per year), even though officials haven't collected a penny for these activities in at least the last five years. Other fees, including ones for inflatable bounce houses and school floats, aren't as anachronistic but – in the view of some City Council members -- nearly as nonsensical.

On Tuesday, the council's Finance Committee took some initial steps in what looks to be a multiyear effort to update the city's municipal fee schedule. By a unanimous vote, the committee recommended deleting from the schedule a list of obscure Police Department fees that no longer seem to apply – including one that pertains to establishing bowling alleys, billiard halls and bingo parlors.

The committee also directed city staff to embark on a review of the entire fee schedule, one department at a time, with the goal of eliminating some fees and adjusting other to better accord with changing state requirements.

Scharff suggested that many of the fees in the book are unnecessary. Both he and Councilman Greg Tanaka had complained in the past about fees for such things as school floats and bounce houses. During the Finance Committee's budget review in May, Tanaka questioned the wisdom of requiring residents to pay fees for their children's birthday parties. Scharff made the same point on Tuesday night.

"How many people actually pay float fees or bouncy house fees?" Scharff asked. "I think there’s a tendency in government to overregulate these kinds of things."

Scharff also suggested that some of the city's permits are also unnecessary. He cited the "gathering permits" that residents are required to pay for park gatherings that involve 25 or more people. Does the city really need to collect permits for park gatherings, he asked?

Vice Mayor Eric Filseth agreed that some fees no longer apply. The bowling alley fee, for example, no longer seems necessary because the city doesn't have bowling alleys anymore.

In addition to eliminating the obsolete police fees, city staff also plans to review a list of other fees that could be revised or moved to a different department. There is, for example, a taxicab fee that is now being updated to better align with county and state laws. There are also various fees relating to massage establishments that staff is recommending revisiting because of overlapping requirements with state permits.

Interim Chief Financial Officer Kiely Nose said staff plans to make the fee update a part of its annual routine, with the goal of getting through one or two departments every year.

The Finance Committee first brought up the idea of revising and eliminating fees on May 16, when council members looked askance at some of the fees that the city proposed to raise. Rather than outright eliminate all the fees they deemed obscure and unnecessary, the committee directed staff to return later in the year with more information and input from affected departments.

At that time, Tanaka criticized the city for charging fees for gatherings, saying it's "ridiculous that we're going to penalize people for Easter Egg hunts." And while council members still hope that Palo Alto will have a bowling alley someday, they also acknowledged that having a bowling fee in place is unlikely to bring that dream any closer to reality.

"You don't encourage businesses by charging them a fee," Scharff said at the May meeting.