The show will go on – at least it will for another five years with the city’s support.
The Tacoma City Council last week agreed to extend a city contract with the Tacoma Events Commission, ensuring that annual city funding and in-kind services will be available for the Freedom Fair July 4th Celebration through 2015.
The council last Tuesday unanimously approved a one-time option to extend an existing five-year contract initiated in 2006. That means the city will continue to provide the commission with $30,000 annually, for a total of $150,000, as well as provide in-kind city police, fire and public works services for the event valued at $1.5 million.
“I recall that earlier this summer there was a concern about Seattle’s Fourth of July celebration being on life support,” Mayor Marilyn Strickland said. “And, I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to see that happen to Tacoma.’ So I know that we found a way to pull it off and pull it together.”
Doug Miller, the events commission’s executive director, said Seattle’s near cancellation of Family 4th at Lake Union fireworks show is indicative of such events “dangling by a thread” nationwide over the past two years. As event sponsorships have dwindled, he said, funding has become more challenging.
“Organizations and events are struggling to survive, many have failed and great traditional events have gone away,” Miller told council members last night.
“We are confident that with the strong statement made by the City Council in supporting this five year extension, that it lends credibility to our organization,” he added. “We are here, we’re going to fight, we’re going to put it on and we will find a way, just as we have for the last 30 years.”
Miller has said putting on the fireworks show costs about $100,000 – or 10 percent of the approximate $1 million it costs to produce the entire Freedom Fair event. Cash donations cover about $250,000, while the rest is made of in-kind donations of goods and services.
Strickland noted that already, Tacoma’s Independence Day celebration is “getting sponsorships for next year coming forward.”
“So this will be a good investment that we’re going to capitalize on, for people supporting this event,” she said.
Lewis Kamb: 253-597-8542 lewis.kamb@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
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