You know that saying about a free lunch? Well, there’s no such thing as a free buncha roses, either.
- MAYOR SAM ADAMS AND COMMISSIONERS RANDY LEONARD AND AMANDA FRITZ ACCEPT ROSES FROM ROSE FESTIVAL ORGANIZERS TODAY
This morning, four of the five commissioners (Saltzman was “out sick,” said a staffer) proposed a resolution to “make the Rose Festival the official festival of the City of Portland.”
There was self-congratulation all round. Governor Vic Atiyeh said he remembered when Mount Saint Helens blew, “and the dust came in our direction, but the parade kept going. It was a messy parade, but we made it through.” A member of the festival’s 75-member board of directors said he remembered the parade after September 11, when the “freedom float” happened. “One of the New York firefighters gave an admiral a chunk of the World Trade Center in a glass box,” he said. “I believe this special moment was part of our nation’s healing.”
“I used to be afraid of clowns,” said a seven-year-old girl. “Now my dad is a clown. I love the Rose Festival.”
- CLOWN: GAVE OUT RED NOSES TO COUNCIL AFTER THE RESOLUTION HAD PASSED
In case you’re out of Ipecac, more cynical Blogtown readers may wish to bookmark this link for future reference when they need to throw up. Perhaps Commissioner Saltzman really was out “sick,” after all…
But whatever you cynical hipsters may think of the Rose Festival, it has been part of Portland since 1908, and I guess I’ve got nothing against us naming it the official festival of the City of Portland. Tom Potter did the same thing for Voodoo Doughnuts—official doughnut of the City of Portland—during his tenure. So it’s not unprecedented.
Something that did surprise me, however, was Mayor Sam Adams casually mentioning during the proceedings that he now plans to figure out a way to waive all the city’s fees levied on the Rose Festival in his upcoming budget. That comes to $250,000 a year, according to the festival’s Executive Director, Jeff Curtis. “We’re saying: You’re special,” said Adams. Yeah. Pretty special!
- NONE OF THE COMMISSIONERS WORE THEIRS. “THIS IS A POLITICIAN’S NIGHTMARE,” SAID ADAMS, TO THE CROWD, LOOKING NERVOUSLY AROUND FOR CAMERAS
The move is not without strings attached, said Adams. “While this festival is about celebrating Portland’s history, I want a co-commitment to always evolving, to making the festival as relevant as possible,” he said. “As hip and cool as anything else out there.” Adams said he knew that there had been “debates” about this among the Rose Festival board, but that he hoped people would see his point of view.
There’s also a payoff for the city—both Adams and Fritz said that the Rose Festival brings $50million to Portland each year, along with 2 million visitors. Those numbers are from a study by downtown economics firm Dean Runyan, done in 2000, says Curtis. A new study is going out to bid as I type. Still, if the City of Portland gets to benefit from $50million in economic stimulus from the Rose Festival every year, one can see that Adams would have a vested interest in insuring that it thrives.
Meanwhile, we’ve asked for a copy of that economic impact study from the festival organizers and will take a closer look at it when it arrives.
MAN! So many jokes about clowns in our government! I think I’m going to have an epileptic fit.
Does this also waive the fees that the Starlight Parade pays? I’m not really sure how those two are/aren’t connected.
Yes it does. Starlight Parade is part of the Rose Festival, which actually encompasses a whole series of events leading up to the Grand Floral Parade.
I’m not taking a position on waiving these fees in particular, but I think their (or Maybe Matt Davis’) logic is wrong.
What they seem to be saying is:
This activity brings in D dollars to the local economy which at tax rate R results in T tax revenue. And as long as T is greater than fee F we’ll waive fee F. In other words, D*R=T, and when T>F, they’ll set F=0.
Several problems with that:
1) Eliminating F is almost always going to make it so that T>F. Doesn’t matter if you are talking about soccer stadiums or parking tickets, if you eliminate the fees, the only thing that wouldn’t look good at that point would be activities that generate tax rebates. (And the things that have tax rebates were things we’ve decided we wanted to encourage in the first place.)
2) Imagine if I took the same logic in my own life: Not counting the odd check from Grandma, my income comes from working. If I said I could accept less money from working because that was what made me the money in the first place, the result would be that I would be poorer and my employer would like me more. Having your employer like you more is great, for getting a raise, (which would thereby cancel out the accepting less money bit,) or if there is a risk that you might be laid off/replaced/etc. (The odds of that happening are rather low in my case.) So the only real result of me accepting less money would be that I would be poorer…
3) Unlike a major league sports team, the Rose Festival isn’t going to leave and go to Pittsburgh no matter how much we charge/subsidize them. (We certainly could charge them so much money that they can’t afford to put on the event at all, but see #5.)
4) The Rose Festival isn’t free to put on: It burns up a lot of police overtime hours, a lot of PDOT resources, etc. The fee is supposed to recover some (all?) of that money.
5) There are no shortages of events like the Rose Festival that people would like to put on. To pick one example: The neo-Nazis would probably love to have a parade like this, if only they could afford it. And a good neo-Nazi demonstration would probably bring in some tax revenue too, so by that standard why don’t we just lower the parade fees across the board? (I think it is a good thing that the Nazis can’t afford it.)
That said: There are good reasons to waive the fee. The big one is “We like the parade.”
Am I the only person who already assumed that the Rose Festival WAS the official festival of the City of Portland?
This is certainly a nice gesture but can Portland afford it? It seems like the organizers never had a problem covering this fee before and right now seems like a bad time to ditch $250,000.
when you stop fencing off the park you can stop paying fees…
Rose Festival? Meh, don’t know what it is, don’t care.
If it takes me more than one diaper to get there, i refer to it simply as a “tax.”
But I’d love to hear why the Portland Mercury so strongly endorses donations to our local evangelical friends, Mercy Corps.
Did y’all find religion, after all?
@toilet joe: Even though you’re an obvious troll; I’ll answer your question. The reason why PDX and OR politicians are pushing Mercy Corps instead of other organizations has a lot to do with the fact that Mercy Corps is based out of Portland.
Mercy Corps is not a religious organization, FYI.