Downtown merchants should help fund fireworks
To the editor,
This past week I have read that the 4th of July Fireworks in Paso for 2015 are cancelled due to fundraising challenges, and the committee that has worked so hard raising funds all these many years has been disbanded.
The week before, I learned that thirty downtown merchants were able to use due process to pull the city’s strings and get Concerts in the Park moved from Friday’s to Thursdays, presumably for cash flow reasons. Not enough dollars can be raised to celebrate the 4th with an aerial display, and not enough cash is trickling from the park on Fridays into the downtown cash registers, despite the thousands downtown.
If you read the letter that these thirty merchants sent to our city, citing their reasons for changing ten years of tradition, it’s bottom line dollars. I get that. I don’t begrudge American businesses pursuing a profit. I especially feel for the servers and bartenders who rely upon tips to make ends meet, and a 10-week drought during the concert series doesn’t sound fun. As a celebrant who loves Friday concerts and has gone for years, it’s was hard to hear that they were going to be moved, crimping a local tradition. A bitter pill, But I get it.
Many of us local folks, though, sense an unpleasant shift in priorities on the part of both the city and the folks who operate businesses downtown. It seems like we’re tying awful hard to attract the out-of-town folks, seemingly at the expense of the local folks who, with all due respect, have really been in love with downtown and the wonderful goings-on there for decades.
I’m not going to say that the locals made downtown what it is, but when the tourists are not frequent in town, it’s the locals who keep the restaurants slammed, and who bring their kids downtown for Christmas shopping, and but movie tickets. We organize and staff the Pioneer Days and the Holiday parades and everything else that makes Paso uniquely and wonderfully Paso. This has been the case for years. I’m proud of my city, and love I showing it off to others.
I encourage everyone local, the city, and downtown merchants who have affected and are affected by these changes to take a deep breath in this moment. Let’s all keep doing good for the right reasons. Locals, I hope you’ll join me in our continued support of the REC Foundation, who raises a ton of money during the Summer Concert Series for local families and Parks. Let’s be there when they pass the hat on Thursdays this summer.
And local merchants? City officials? It seems to me that you are the only two entities with the capital and the horsepower to not let our town’s July 4th Celebration die! Merchants… how about kicking some of that supercharged Friday cash flow into a fireworks fund? If you had a sign in your window indicating you were supporting Paso’s 4th of July Fireworks, I’d be inclined to eat out and shop downtown more often, even on a Tuesday. And City of Paso Robles? How about stepping up and fast-tracking approval of a July 4th we locals can all be proud of? And a parking garage might be handy as well. Just a suggestion.
Respectfully,
Bret Harrison
Paso Robles
