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City Wants $60,000 From Arab Fest For It To Happen
The Arab International Festival could be the first realized casualty of the city’s fiscal crisis, unless organizers quickly find a way to raise $60,000.
The sum roughly equals what the city has spent in previous years on the annual Warren Avenue street fair, largely through providing public safety and public works services. But with the city facing a gaping budget deficit ‚ and the corresponding need to cut programs, services, and staff — this year, it could be a price too steep.
“We really need to be reimbursed for the $59,000 for those key responsibilities,” Mayor Jack O’Reilly said Thursday at a special city council meeting on the festival.
The logistical difficulties of shutting down one of the city’s three main east-west thoroughfares long have been recognized by the city, but justified in the name of public benefit. There are barriers to put up, traffic needing redirection, and all manner of signage that must be posted. Then, when everything wraps up on Sunday of the festival weekend, a “small army” of public works employees work through the night to have everything ready for normal traffic by 6 a.m. Monday. Compounding costs are the fact that the unconventional hours mean many employees in that “small army” need to be paid overtime rates.
City officials have been working to identify ways to help cut the costs including ongoing discussions with the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office about taking over the policing duties, which is the city’s single largest cost.
Another option under consideration is to move the festival to a city-owned property that wouldn’t require such significant prep and post work. The Ford Community and Performing Arts Center was one example discussed and some city officials also suggested consulting the Ford Foundation, a big Arab Fest sponsor, about using some of the expansive Ford World Headquarters campus, which has hosted other large festivals such as the Ford centennial celebration in 2003.
But with only a little more than a month before Arab Fest, changing the venue would be impossible at this point, said Fay Beydoun, executive director of the festival-organizing American Arab Chamber of Commerce.
“We have booths rented, we have sponsors lined up and to move it this year would just pose too many difficulties at this point,” she said.
The mayor has said previously that the festival is no longer predicated on its original mission, which when it moved to Warren Avenue in 1995 was to showcase the up-and-coming business district there. With the district now established, however, the importance of having the event there is not as paramount, said O’Reilly.
Not so, said Beydoun. She said “90 percent” of the businesses within the festival grounds support the event and want to see it held again, citing a petition the chamber circulated to area businesses. To bolster her case, she provided council members with an economic impact study by a Michigan State University professor that estimated Arab Fest brings in $7 million dollars and attracts about 300,000 people over the entirety of the weekend. Despite the apparent support, though, coming up with the money for public services at so late a juncture is impossible, Beydoun said.
“To be very, very honest, for the chamber to come up right now and say ‘Here’s $60,000,’ it’s not feasible, it’s not possible. And I wouldn’t be able to stand up here and commit that to you when I know I’m not going to be able to deliver,” she said.
“We’re not saying we don’t want to pay anything, we’re saying let’s sit down at a meeting where all parties are present in the same room instead of this going back and forth.”
Beydoun pointed out that the festival itself has been affected by the economic downturn, losing such major sponsors as General Motors and Chrysler, and more recently, those sponsors’ replacements, the FBI and U.S. military. Moreover, she said the festival isn’t a cash cow for the chamber.
“We really look at this as a community service,” she said.
But several council members questioned why the city should pay for the event if it such an economic boon for the area businesses, as the impact study suggests.
“If they are seeing such a benefit from this, you would think they would be willing to pay sponsorship fees for it,” said Councilman Mark Shooshanian.
And Shooshanian, a Dearborn Public Schools teacher and athletic director at Fordson High School, said it also comes down to a question of equity.
“At the high schools we’re paying for extra police for our football games, our basketball games. We’re getting charged for all of that,” he said. “So I was surprised that this festival wasn’t paying for police, too. That would be my objection. At the schools we don’t have the money; we have to pay for it.”
Eric Peterson, deputy director of the city’s recreation department, furthered the equity argument by pointing out that west Dearborn businesses that hold events after Homecoming, the city-sponsored festival in August, are required to pay a $500 permit fee per night to the city or $1,000 for the entire weekend. And unlike the Warren Avenue businesses, the west Dearborn businesses aren’t located in direct proximity to the event. For businesses that actually get a Homecoming booth, the minimum sponsorship fee is $2,500.
“Keep in mind that these businesses that are being impacted are technically right in the festival areas. I’d think Fay could easily request $2,500 from a business, especially with the economic impact,” he said.
O’Reilly was more direct in his assessment.
“If it’s not making any money then there’s no value added in having it. Clearly, if (the study represented) the economic impact, then the businesses should be paying for it,” he said.
The chamber could not be reached Friday for further comment before The Press & Guide’s deadline.
J. Patrick Pepper
Press & Guide Newspapers