Published: November 02, 2009 09:59 pm      

Community Park won’t see holiday lights

Community Park won’t have a Christmas display this year, following cuts in the city’s budget for holiday festivities, and resignation of the Festival of Lights organizers. However, the lighting up of downtown and the Christmas parade will continue, according to city officials.

The park display and annual Christmas parade were organized by the volunteer group Festival of Lights. However, as the city was trimming its budget this year, money came out of a series of holiday-related funds, including the Festival of Lights fund.

On Friday, Dennis Thornberg, head of the Festival of Lights, said he couldn’t do the display this year at Community Park, but would continue to organize the parade if the city would underwrite it.

On Monday, city officials said they would take over the parade. The city has not offered to put up the park display.

“The last two years I’ve been putting my own money into it to finish it up, and it just couldn’t continue,” Thornberg said Monday. “I fought with this decision for a couple of months because I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. But I just couldn’t continue to put my own money in it.”

Thornberg said the primary expenses were fixing up the displays, putting them up and taking them down, and storing them all year long.

In the past, the city has given $6,500, and Bank of America has donated $5,000 to pay for the displays and parade. This year, the city reduced its donation to $5,000, Thornberg said.

“I was squeezed for money, and when that was cut, I just couldn’t do it anymore,” he said.

When times improve, the city may bring back the park displays, but this year’s parade won’t be affected too much except that it will take place in the daytime, said Sharla Allen, parks director.

“It’s going to be a day parade, at 10 a.m. (Dec. 5),” she said. “We’re going to have a main stage with a DJ, and we’ll have a line-up of activities for the day. Hopefully, the downtown merchants will bring their things out for people to buy and shopping.”

Having it in the morning will promote downtown businesses, increase visibility of the floats, horses and participants, and make it safer for bystanders, Allen said.

“We’ll have a theme and we’ll do awards. We’ll have music playing. It will be fun,” she said.

Previous parade participants are invited again this year, and urged to create floats. The parade theme will be announced later this week.

The budget for the downtown lighting was also reduced, but a local donor has stepped up to make it happen, according to Malinda Veldman, Main Street director.

“We were cut, too,” Veldman said. “We were told we couldn’t put up the intersection displays, so we got busy Friday and we have a downtown business willing to put up half the cost. They’re willing to match whatever we’re able to raise.” The donor wishes to remain anonymous, she said.

Veldman estimated the downtown budget was reduced to about $7,000.

“The budget was cut by 30 percent. They said the economy is such that the city can’t justify spending those funds,” Veldman said. “I asked if I could appeal to the downtown businesses.”

Lighting up downtown with twinkle lights has been a tradition for 24 years, while the scrolls on street lights, and the intersection displays began within the last 10 years, Veldman said.

“People value that downtown. People felt downtown was dark, and they said ‘we’ve got to ramp up that downtown scene,’” she recalled. “It was a private group of citizens that arranged to have the intersection (displays) installed.”

The primary expense is having certified electricians do the repairs and installation of the lights, and then the power and maintenance for the duration of the display, she said.

Although the Main Street office has held a big lighting ceremony with fireworks in the past, that event might be scaled back this year, she said. The downtown lighting ceremony is scheduled for Nov. 19.

“We want to do what’s appropriate,” Veldman said. The Main Street Advisory board and local businesses would be included in the decision-making process, she said.

“We really rely on those networks to help us decide what is the best way to proceed,” she said.

The Christmas parade in Corsicana was originally a Rotary Club project, and in the late 1980s the park project and parade was passed from the Wednesday Rotary Club to the Monday Rotary Club. Eventually, the Festival of Lights group was formed and took it over.

“Dennis Thornberg and Lynn Sanders were the hardest workers on it,” said Leonard Fuller, who was one of the Rotary volunteers at the time.

The park displays began as a joint venture between the groups and the city and the Festival of Lights group took it over from the city, Thornberg said. The group will pass along the displays and lights to the city, he said.

“The city’s going to store (the displays),” he said. “They said they’re not going to do anything this year, but they might try to resurrect it next year.”

—————

Click here to e-mail Janet Jacobs.

Click here to Soundoff on this story.