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Highlands Today

AP Reins In Free Services For Christmas Parade

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

The Avon Park High School art club decorated their float with snowflakes for the winter wonderland theme of the Avon Park annual Christmas parade.

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: September 10, 2008

AVON PARK - The Avon Park Chamber of Commerce is going to seek help from the town's community redevelopment agencies after the city refused to provide free services for the annual Christmas Parade.

The chamber of commerce, which sponsors the parade, does not receive any city funding for the event. However, over the years, the city has not charged for its services such as crowd control by the police department and city workers helping with barricading streets and cleanup.

Along with other municipalities and county governments in the state, Avon Park is facing serious budget issues and making cuts to reduce spending such as leaving two police officer positions vacant.

City Manager Sarah Adelt met with the chamber of commerce board recently and they proposed splitting the costs.

Avon Park Chamber of Commerce Executive Director David Greenslade asked the city council Monday for its assistance.

"Four-thousand dollars is just a lot that we don't have in our budget and we thought that if we could just partner ... if we could split those services 50/50 to partner the event to make it a community wide event," he said.

Council Member Joe Wright asked where is the line drawn for who is charged for city services during events.

"For example a high school homecoming parade do we charge them ... or what about the MLK Day Martin Luther King is that something that they have that event in Avon Park and the police blocks the street, are they going to get a bill for that?" he asked.

Adelt replied "Anything that would generate that we would send a bill for."

Discussion then centered on possible contributions from the three community redevelopment agencies - Main Street, Southside and Airport. There were mixed opinions on whether the Southside CRA or Airport CRA could legally contribute because the event is on Main Street and not within those CRAs.

City Councilman Al Joe Hinson said the three CRAs should contribute $1,500 because residents from all parts of the city go to see the parade.

He doesn't want the parade called off, Hinson said. "I thought last year was probably one of the best ones and just hope it gets bigger ... so I would hate for it to not be."

Greenslade replied "we will have a parade. The assistance will be greatly appreciated and make it a lot easier to make it a quality parade. We are not going to give up on the parade."

Deloris Blackman, Southside CRA advisory board member, said, "if we can donate money to historic events and Christmas only comes once a year and it's an activity where the whole community is involved and comes together ... I am pretty sure that all three CRAs can contribute something.

"The Christmas parade should go on," she said.

Blackman said she will bring the matter before the Southside CRA advisory board at its 5:30 p.m. meeting on Thursday.

The city council unanimously voted against splitting the cost of its services for the parade with the chamber of commerce.

Greenslade said the chamber will look to the CRAs for help to pay for those expenses.

The parade will be held on Dec. 1, he said.

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