So whats this I hear about the city cancelling the Festival in the park this year?
That thing has been going on since the summer I was born!
I remember my 10th birthday we went to the Pancake breakfast and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me, and my 12th, 13th, and 16th. I have spent almost every birthday celebrating at the festival in some way or another because they have always been the weekend of my birthday. Now that I am about to have my 31st and will have moved back to Colorado for the first time in 6 years, theyre not going to have it?
I can understand the mess it makes, and if it cost's the city some money but then why cant they ask the citizens for help? I would have gladly donated just to keep the Festival alive.
Thats a Fort Morgan tradition I was not prepared to see die..
Our poor little town, what's to become of you?!
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THE FESTIVAL IN THE PARK WAS GETTING TO BE A JOKE IN THE MATTER THAT LESS SALES BOOTH WERE BEING SET UP EACH YEAR. MY UNDERSTANDING IS THAT IT WAS BECAUSE THEIR COULD NO TWO BOOTHS SELLING THE SAME ITEMS, SUCH AS ONLY ONE BOOTH COULD SELL CANDLE OR ONLY ONE BOOTH COULD SELL T-SHIRTS...ETC ECT......HOW PITYFUL CAN YOU GET.
I cannot answer to the specifics of Fort Morgan's decision to cancel their summer event, but I can answer to the general issue. I have experience here in Colorado in working on planning committees, putting on city events in towns ranging from 4000 to over 100,000 in population.RE: one booth per product offering. For smaller towns, this is not uncommon, and is often propagated by the vendors themselves. Many vendors will not even consider participating unless they have product exclusivity. There are many other considerations as well, including estimated attendance.Small town events in Colorado, aside from metro Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and Grand Junction, tend to draw fewer than 3000 people. Many food vendors, for example (esp. corporate food vendors) will not even consider events of that size large enough to be a part of. Cost is an important function of their decisions. County health department fees as well as vendor fees can be too big an investment compared with potential return.On the non-food side of the equation, especially in small towns, it boils down to competition for product offerings. I recently was involved in an event that produced about 2500 people, and over half the vendors who participated did not sell enough products to cover their costs of being there.Another consideration these past couple of years has been funding. Much of the money that comes in to produce these events comes in from donations outside of city government - and for many years, land developers put up some of the biggest contributions. Larger businesses/corporations plan their donations typically in Sept, so if the city does not submit their proposals on time, those donations are usually non-existent, or very small.Small donations from citizens and the smallest of businesses simply cannot cover the costs of many small town events today. The price tag for an event that might draw 2000-3000 people can easily escalate to beyond $75,000.00 ... including entertainment, production, tents, licensing, insurance, power, infrastructure, ground fees, security, and other associated costs.
Man, I realize what living in a little town like Ft. Morgan is like, I come from there. But all the complaining about stuff that has little importance in the whole scheme of life. If I leave my garage door open really late at night, I'd appreciate it if the cops would knock on the door and let me know. There doing you a favor. Believe me, you won't get that in a bigger city. You need to have your house burglarized once to appreciate what it feels like when a stranger gets into your house. Several years ago we had a runaway kid from Colo Springs get in and take some stuff. Life is what you make it. Chuck Swindoll wrote a piece that sums it up and should make you think. It follows:ATTITUDE
by: Charles SwindollThe longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.
I agree they have nothing in this town but too many cops and bad smells. The police have rang my door bell at 1:30 AM to tell me my garage door was opened. I guess that is a crime these days. They harrass the youth of this town and we are moving out of this place because of all of these things.
It's obvious, isn't it? The city needs the money so they can pay the guys that rip up the roads and leave the chunks unpaved for months at a time. And to pay the police to show up at your door at 10:30 at night to give you a warning for not shoveling your snow because you've had the flu.That takes some serious money...Maybe they plan to take that money and use it to try to control the horrible smell coming from the sugar beet factory. Nothing says "Move to Fort Morgan!" like that smell finding it's way into your nasal passages.Or better yet they could use some of the money to buy the K-Mart building that is destined to sit empty for the next 20 years. Just ask any one that lives in Greeley how long it took to sell theirs.
You know it isn't the city workers who leave the streets torn up, its not their choice to leave them like that. They are just out there doing what they are told. So i wouldn't place the blame on them when you don't know who makes the decisions. But I do agree about the cops showing up at your door wondering why you didn't shovel the snow, and if they will ever do something with the old k-mart building, and everyone complains about about the smell in Fort Morgan, thats what that town is known for. Thats not good for the town.
So you are saying the head of the Streets Department isn't a city employee? Even if they were just doing what they were told, you would think they would have the guts to say "hey, we should probably repair that now that we've ripped it up!" to the higher ups. And there are ways to control the smell from the sugar beet factory.http://www.beetseed.com/view_article.php?id=1216 To the guy that was complaining about the Cop letting him know that his garage door open, he was doing you a favor. So you didn't get everything in your garage stolen, if I were you I would send the officer a thank you card.
I never said that they weren't an employee, everyone has a boss that sits in the office and tells them what to, and makes all the decisions. You actually think the city workers who tear up the streets just sit there and say, hey lets tear up the street and then just leave it that way.NO! the don't they have a boss who tells them where the job is and what to do, and sometimes when they tear up the street, they find more problems and can't repair the street right away, do you think that the city people sit there and think of reasons to piss off the town, sometimes things just go wrong. Thats life. Everything can't always go perfect. There are many other things to worry about , than petty things.
Try telling that to my car. I've had to have my car's front end realigned twice because I wasn't able to move around one of their "projects" due to oncoming traffic. So it's not petty when I have to shell money out of my own pocket. I pay property taxes and sales taxes so the people the city hires will finish what they start. Why is it so much to ask that people do their jobs? I can accept that things happen, I understand that. But this business of letting the holes sit for months upon months at a time is asinine.
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by: Charles SwindollThe longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.
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