Is your town/city cancelling events?

[spyrosmom]

I live in a town of about 145,000-150,000 people. Not tiny, not huge. They have been canceling activities recently due to lack of money. Wondering if this is happening anywhere else? Its kind of upsetting/depressing. Thing is, my property values went down, not alot, but a little, and my taxes went up. huh??? Must be that "new math"

4th of July Fireworks - almost canceled, but public kicked in another $9k and the show went on

PumpkinFest - Very upset about this one, I lovelovelove Halloween.

Waterway Daze - food, carnival, vendors, night time boat parade

Fine art fest - We never bought anything, but it was fun to look ($$$$$)

Car show - lumped in w/ another event - not interested, but still

Race Fan Rally - made smaller, again not interested, but

The Easter parade was almost canceled until someone kicked in some more money

I believe a few other things have gone by the wayside. Yet the city is spending millions to tear up the turf at the stadium and replace it w/ artificial turf?????? I know certain money is budgeted for certain things, but I don't get it and I don't like it. All these other events are free (unless you chose to spend money) family oriented things (ok, kids are a bit bored by the art) that always have big crowds. From my understanding, the biggest issue is security. The city can't afford the O/T for the police, the organizations can't afford to pay more for the police, and can't afford outside security. Seems to me if we could all act like civilized human beings, the need for so much police/security presence wouldn't be there -but that's another topic.

And then I see on the news about larger cities like Chicago that just laid off 400+ workers due to budget issues. A lot were library workers - we NEED those people. We don't need 16 guys to stand around a fill a pothole. But then the mayor is spending ginormous amounts of money to try to get the Olympics. Granted, the Olympics would be cool and such, but why not take care of your own? Although Chicago has some crazy politics anyway.

I swear if any normal, non political person looked at a state/city budget, we could balance it in a day, but it gets all tied up in who's scratching who's back and all jacked up!

Ohh, that kinda turned rant-y. Sorry Off to KPC, maybe that'll help.

Nan

 

[Liann]

I hear you Nan. My state can't even come up with a budget at all. They are going to stop paying state workers soon if they can't come up with one. It's a mess. I live in a very small town and so far none of our little festivals have been canceled. We do not do too much though. It will be interesting to see if they scale back some of the Fairs in the fall.

 

[syzygy314]

You'd never know there was an economic crisis here! It's too touristy in areas for the State to cancel anything. All of our fireworks, festivals, etc. have gone on without a hitch even though you hear on the news about city workers taking cuts in pay and benefits, etc. so their cities/towns can function. A shame really.

 

[lkl]

we didn't have fireworks this year. we did have a memorial day parade, hardly anyone showed up! i feel so bad for the veterans, they deserve their due, so i always try to go and cheer them on. nice old patriotic gentlemen ))and this year they had some desert storm vets. your town has alot more going on then mine, we have very few events. i wish we could have a pumpkin festival!

 

[sparrow13]

So far my town has not canceled anything. We actually have a balanced budget though so it's OK around here. It really helps that we only have K-6. They did do a reval on houses but so far taxes have not changed. I've hear a lot of communities around us though have raised taxes even though values have gone down.

I heard to that a town is MA is raising water rates because we've had so much rain that people aren't using as much water for their lawns and gardens and revenue is down. Damned if you do...

 

[martijean1]

I don't remember who on here is from Maple Grove (MN), but Elk River (town south of us) cancelled their fireworks this year...I remember seeing those as a kid, and took my D there for years!

2 of the resorts on the lake we go to also cancelled their shows...We can usually watch 5 different resorts/towns ust sitting on the dock, this year it was 3..Can't complain, was still a beautifu sight!
MJ

 

[LauraMax]

Yep, no fireworks for us the last two years. And town hall is closed one Friday a month, an unpaid day off.

That's about it though--it's surprising how unwilling our elected officials are to cancel our weekly concerts in the park, the subsidies to nonprofits, the funding of special projects, as opposed to their willingness to cut our pay or lay us off.

 

[wgilchrist]

They haven't started canceling things yet (here in Vegas) but they are closing down all of my favorite Starbucks...,wahhhhhhh!

 

[janie1234]

I hear you Nan. My state can't even come up with a budget at all. They are going to stop paying state workers soon if they can't come up with one. It's a mess. I live in a very small town and so far none of our little festivals have been canceled. We do not do too much though. It will be interesting to see if they scale back some of the Fairs in the fall.

California has already enforced a 3 day furlough (spelling?) on state workers every month and our fire works show was much shorter and not as great as it was last year. When will this economy every change?? Surprisingly the Fairs in our county have been doing well because no one is taking long vacations anymore. Everyone is staying close to home so that you don't have to spend more on travel.