Here we go again, yet another story about the beauty and expense of Falls Park, WW light display;
“With all the people in this city who need a meal, why do they spend all that money on the lights?” Monger asked.
While Larry has a good point, I have often suggested we can have the nice light display AND it wouldn’t cost the city much more then an electric bill;
As for the display itself, While I think it is a great idea, I think it could be done differently. Other cities do similiar displays but they have businesses volunteer the expense and labor and use it as an opportunity for teambuilding around Christmas. Workers and their families of the businesses that donate volunteer their time to set up the display then the city foots the bill of the electricity. They do have sponsors, but city employees do all the set-up. In fact, mostly public works department workers from the forestry division begin assembling the display starting October 1st. Which I find ironic in itself. One time when I questioned the city about project TRIM and why the city’s forestry department just didn’t trim trees that residences couldn’t reach in the boulevard, they replied, “We don’t have enough staff or enough time.†But taking almost two months to put up Christmas lights, plenty of time for. Just imagine how many trees could be trimmed in that same time period?
Once again, the city proves it’s priorities towards citizens and the law.
I also find this ironic, since the city is always bragging about public/private partnerships, yet have no idea what the display actually costs us and seems to have NO interest in making it more economical while possibly making it better.
Hopefully the new mayor will take on the challenge of opening the light display up to local businesses.
remember when this was a charity fundraiser at yankton trail?
During the SuFu show today, councilor Erpenbach justified the costs as ‘quality of life’. What about giving to charity like we did in the past with sponsorships? Let’s talk about ‘quality of life’. If we can drop $500K on a tennis center that is never used, we can certainly use a public park for charity fundraising?
I also asked why the finance department couldn’t give ‘hard numbers’ on what it is costing us. Michelle said she could point to the line item in the budget. So how is it that Michelle knows the amount in a budget book prepared by the finance department, but that same department can’t give those numbers to a newspaper reporter?
What Ev!
Don’t give Huether any ideas. If he frees up the money, he’ll just use it to give bigger raises to his department heads.
(Or appoint a director of sponsorships with the extra money).