Lights on or off? : For the first time since 1993, city doesn’t plan on funding Lights of the Ozarks
Posted on Sunday, November 18, 2007
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/59378/
Fayetteville’s budget crunch has once again raised the question of whether the Lights of the Ozarks will continue.
This is not the first time that city officials have talked of ending the program, but it is the first time the proposed budget hasn’t included funding for the program, which started in the early 1990 s.
The $ 29, 000 line item has been eliminated from the city’s Capital Improvement Program for 2008 as a means of balancing the budget. To cover a $ 2. 3 million shortfall, the city is planning on changing the division of the 1-cent general sales tax, which would go to around 60 percent for operations and 40 percent for capital projects.
That shift will generate about $ 1. 5 million more for the general fund, but it will mean cutting capital projects such as the Lights of the Ozarks. The program is the last holdover from the lighting project, which started in 1993 as a way to foster sales tax during the winter months.
“ Back then it went from the mall to the airport, ” Marilyn Heifner, executive director of the Advertising & Promotion Commission and one of the initial organizers of the program, said.
When it was first conceived, the lights around the Square were part of a much larger program, which was the result of a strategic planning session of the commission, Heifner said. The group was looking for ways to spur sales tax revenue in the winter months and a lighting program was an option that caught steam, she said.
Heifner said the commission was working with the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce on the project. She said the project started with a group of about 30 volunteers, aided George Smith who had recent- ly taken over as publisher of the Northwest Arkansas Times.
Smith had had experience in working on light festivals in Marshall, Texas, which participates in the Holiday Trail of Lights. According the event Web site, Marshall got involved with the lighting project in 1987 and now displays more than 10 million lights in that community.
Heifner said in the early years volunteers would go to various property owners along the route offering a lighting plan and lights, which could be purchased from the chamber. She said the lights were sold for about $ 5, but purchased for $ 4. 10.
There wasn’t much money made on the lights but enough to buy T-shirts and pay for the event’s Jingle Bell Jog, Heifner said. That went on for about three years, she said, then volunteers started dwindling, and the program ceased, save for the Square.
Heifner said the arrangement has always been that the commission would pay to purchase new lights — to the tune of $ 20, 000 — while the city installed them. The rest of the festivities, such as the parade, are organized by the chamber, she said.
“ The city has done the installation on the Square forever, ” she said.
Heifner said the commission is seeing its revenue dry up as well. Usually the commission distr ibutes money to groups twice a year, but unless the tax revenue increases, there will be no more money to disperse next year, she said.
If the city can’t contribute more to buy lights, Heifner said, they will have to decide whether or not they can do it with the $ 20, 000 from the commission, which buys a lot of lights. Perhaps they can do it with fewer lights, or use more from the previous years, he said.
“ That’s a question they’ll have to answer if they continue doing it, ” she said. “ I’d hate to see it go. For a lot of people, that is their bright spot in the winter. ”
Whether the chamber will seek corporate sponsors for the lighting program is something that remains to be seen, Bill Ramsey, president and CEO of the chamber, said. “ I don’t know what the future of Lights of the Ozarks is, ” Ramsey said. Ramsey said he’s never seen an economic impact study, so there is no way of knowing how much revenue is generated by the festival, but “ it is a good kickoff to the holiday season. ” The chamber’s involvement is limited to organizing the parade and other first weekend events, which is done in conjunction with the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, Ramsey said. The chamber also registers vendors who operate on the Square, he said, though they do not charge for that service. Ramsey said registering vendors is more of a means of making sure transient vendors don’t compete with merchants on the Square, such as Jammin’ Java. The registration is also a means of helping make sure vendors pay sales tax. Other than the money from selling a sponsorship to cover this weekend’s events, Ramsey said the chamber doesn’t budget anything for the festival. There has already been an outcry over the potential loss of the program, he said, but right now the chamber is just going to wait and see. “ We’ll just have to see what the sentiment of my board is as far as us getting involved, ” he said. “ There are probably more important priorities given the state of the Fayetteville economy. “ Economic development and working with Steve Rust (Fayetteville Economic Development Council ) will always be our number one priority, ” Ramsey said. “ It had better be our number one priority. ”
Fundraising has also been suggested by the City Council and is something that Connie Edmonston, Parks and Recreation director, is willing to pursue.
The majority of the cost, however, is in personnel, Edmonston said. Last year the festival cost a total of $ 113, 884. Labor accounted for $ 60, 574, she said — an expense that will not be avoided regardless of whether the festival continues.
In addition to labor costs, $ 3, 597 was spent on vehicles used by employees, $ 6, 696 for utilities, $ 32, 291 for materials and new lights and $ 10, 726 for equipment rentals, Edmonston said. The division covered $ 64, 000 out of its operational budget and received $ 20, 000 from the A & P Commission and $ 29, 000 from the sales tax capital improvement program.
Edmonston said the division purchased some LED lights this year, which are more expensive, but are more energy efficient.
Last year, crews spent a total of 3, 460 hours on the lights — 2, 467 hours of that for installation. The rest of the time is spent on maintaining the lights during the festival and taking them down.
Edmonston said crews would be working on their regular responsibilities if they were not putting up lights. In fact, it would be easier on them to be able to concentrate on park maintenance instead of the lights festival, she said.
“ There are a lot of things we need to be doing during the winter, ” she said. “ It’s not as if we have time to sit around and play cards or anything. ”
Edmonston said the division has more than enough properties to be responsible for, but division workers also love what they do and will gladly do whatever they are directed to by the council. While the city is having financial difficulties, Edmonston said it is important to consider the impact such services offer. “ Yeah our city is having a hard time, but so are a lot of families, ” Edmonston said. “ We can’t forget people need our parks now more than ever. ” Edmonston said while she will be happy to start looking for sponsors for the event, the division already searches for financial support for other programs such as baseball, softball and soccer. “ We can only go to the businesses so much, ” she said. “ Plus, I don’t have a huge staff that can commit to soliciting. ”
The parks division has been putting up the lights for six years, prior to which they were installed by maintenance crews with some help from prison trustys. Byron Humphr y, park maintenance supervisor, said he and his crews really enjoy putting the lights up, at least at the beginning of the two month process. “ As with anything, it’s exciting when we first start, but after seven weeks it gets monotonous, ” he said. “ It takes a lot of our time that we could be catching up with work in parks that we don’t have time to do. ” Humphry and his team create the light display, refining it each year based on the previous year’s experience. It is a tedious affair, but it gets easier the more a person does it, he said. For the 15 or so people who work on the project, it is very rewarding, Humphry said, but life will go on if the festival ends. “ I’d miss it — part of it — but I think I would like being able to get in our parks and do maintenance and upgrades we don’t have time to do during the year because we have to mow, ” he said.