City Council Approves 2012 Celtic Festival

Don't sell your kilt.

The Celtic Festival is returning to Saline July 13-14, 2012.

Saline City Council voted 6-1 to stage the annual festival, which is a function of the city, at Mill Pond Park.

Council took the vote after listening to 15 minutes of public comment and a nearly 20-minute presentation on Saline’s signature summer event.

In a rare instance, each member of council spoke on the matter before voting. Mayor Gretchen Driskell and councilors Dean Girbach, Jim Peters, Linda TerHaar, David Rhoads and Glenn Law voted in favor of the motion to approve next year’s festival. Councilor Brian Marl voted against the motion.

Driskell, who has been involved with the festival since it was founded, defended the festival as a showcase for Mill Pond Park, Downtown Saline and its citizens. She said that visitors to the festival return for other Saline events, shop in stores and eat in restaurants. And, she said, the event has a larger purpose.

“Internally, what we’ve done in this community is create a great resource for volunteers and people to get together and see each other. I understand there is some concern about having a fun event in these economic times,” Driskell said.

She said that the festival has been an inspiration for many youngsters who’ve gone on to bigger things in the Celtic music world.

“They get their inspiration in this place where we share joy together around music and entertainment,” she said. “You go down there and see all these crazy things going on—the Vikings, Mill Pond Millie. It’s wild. And then the next day you go down there and the tents are all gone and you can do your little quiet run through the park and see the geese, and everything’s back to normal. It’s like this little magic happened.”

Marl said he appreciated the passion shown by the festival organizers, but that he could not support the city’s involvement.

“I do not believe it is the appropriate role of government to underwrite community events. And frankly, in these economic times, I don’t believe it is worth the risk,” Marl said. “We have three successful events in the city that receive nominal government support compared to the Celtic Festival. These groups are citizen-driven, financially viable and continue to expand. In my judgment, that’s the model the community should follow.”

Earlier this year, the Celtic Festival at the council table. Joining Marl on the “no” side in March were council members Pat Ivey and Girbach. Ivey resigned from council when he moved to Colorado. He was replaced by Peters, a long-time member of the festival’s organizing committee. Girbach said he changed his vote this time around because the festival showed progress this year. He said he was happy to see the formation of a non-profit foundation that is taking an active role in financing the festival, but said he was concerned that the city was still liable if the festival had a bad year. He suggested investigating the purchase of insurance that might cover a washout.

Girbach said he also had concerns about delineating the roles of the non-profit foundation and the city. He also said as long as the city is involved in the festival, a new rainy day fund be maintained within the city’s structure, and not in the foundation’s structure. Girbach said if there are no plans to pay down the festival's long-term $34,000 debt to the city, which ballooned after a couple of rainy years when the economy went south, he'd like to see it written off.

“If it is not going to be covered at some time, or if we’re not going to carry it forward, then we need to take a stance and say it is a write-off and consider it a starting point,” Girbach said. “What my goal would be is that this eventually moves to the foundation and comes off of our books. For this year, because you’ve made such a significant stride in getting to that point, I am not going to vote against it.”

Council’s decision was good news to Bob Rash, who serves on the festival’s organizing committee.

“I’m very happy to move forward. Last year, we didn’t have approval until four months beforehand. We accomplished a lot. Based on the extra time that we have, I think we can achieve even more than we did last year,” said Rash.

During a presentation to council, Rash said organizers were “surprised, damaged and ashamed” when the festival met resistance at the council table in March.

“We’re all volunteers. Nobody gets paid for this. But we wanted to make a commitment. We wanted to show results, and I think we did,” Rash said.

The festival cut back on expenses, identified new sources of revenue and added new events to help increase attendance by five percent over 2010 attendance. At the same time costs were reduced by eight percent.

The 16th annual Celtic Festival drew more than 4,400 people to the park on Saturday, including 3,368 people who paid to attend. The festival generated $61,887 in revenue and cost $61,209. The $600 profit will be put in a “rainy day” that stands at $1,800. Organizers hope to increase the fund to $15,000 in the coming years, to give the festival the padding it needs to survive a “rain-out” that some say the city can no longer afford to bankroll.

The festival issue was the subject of most of the public comment at Monday's meeting.

Resident Mary Hess said that with budget uncertainty, it was time for the city to get out of the festival business.

“We don’t know what’s happening next year. We don’t know what’s happening to our Social Security. We don’t know what’s happening to our retirement. We are having trouble keeping our police dispatches and with our (Department of Public Works) contract, and yet we’re waiving fees (for the festival),’ Hess said. “If you want to have a party, take a collection.”

Sheila Graziano, a volunteer with the festival, said that the event is now seeing its second generation of volunteers. She estimated that the 360 volunteers provide the city with  “a couple hundred thousand dollars” of labor.

Pam Grosshans, an executive board member for the festival, said she believes the city should be fiscally responsible but said that if the city can’t waive expenses for the Celtic Festival, than it can’t do so for all the other events it supports.

“I wouldn’t want to live in a community that was so sterile, that they didn’t have any money for fun, art or culture, for community togetherness or volunteerism. I don’t want to live in that community,” Grosshans said. “Yes, you need to be fiscally responsible. You need to say, this is how much, as a city, we can allot to these things. But don’t take them all away, because then you are just living in a sterile community without any enrichment.”

According to Rash, a study of the Celtic Festival concluded that the festival contributed $189,000 to the Saline economy in 2011.