"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Monday 5 January 2015

Glad You Think So

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Next Christmas at Church Street School":



It is gratifying to see that there are still those individuals or organizations that are prepared to go about their business of raising funds for worthy causes without appealing to the public purse for financial assistance.

There is nothing old-fashioned about this concept.

It's just that more and more individuals and organizations feel they have a right to financial assistance from the public for whatever cause they may represent.

This "right" is wrong. 
Posted by Anonymous to Our Town and Its Business at 5 January 2015 at 15:50

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During the Mormac regime,I would have bet  people were invited to come to Council and ask for  user fee waivers  and other funding from the town. 

Many the Mayor encountered  out and about eventually wound up at the podium as suppliants.  

Little changed in the last term. Staff recommended a figure but  the St Kitts jazz carnival got  more from Council  in the first year. 

16,000 visitors were claimed to have spread tourist bounty about. 

I heard the organizers had a bank machine in the park to save visitors the effort of leaving the park. 

Entertainment,, vendors, food concessions and beer tent were all on hand. A chain link fence allowed admission to be charged all who entered. 

Hundreds of volunteers provided free labour. 

Mighty offense was taken when the event was deemed ineligible for funding in the second year. 

Picked up their bongos and went north five miles for warmer welcome and no doubt a  more generous transfer of funds from municipal coffers. 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually I think they got ticked off because they were not entitled to automatic funding - they were just asked to file the same paperwork as other groups. It turned out to have been regarded as a terrible affront. But the writing was on the wall when our dear old clerk rejected that lady's attempt to run for council despite her not being a resident. Another problem with her paperwork.......

Anonymous said...

Yes, I guess they ran the jazz festival like a business with gates, bank machine and beer tent. They received precious little from the town yet provided a nice summer venue.

They were run out of town on the basis of some foolish requirements that anyone with common sense would realize were nonsense.

Run it like a business, not like a business(Culture Center)or a quasi business(Legion)and you are a candidate to be run out of town.


Anonymous said...

17:28, the requirement was not to be a Morrisite. Once the 2010 election was done, the horse they backed prior was a liability and of no use.

Anonymous said...

It was the fencing that did it. People around the park had to put up with the noise & traffic over the duration without even a bit of of the venue open for their use.

Anonymous said...

@17:28
Huh ? Say what ?

Anonymous said...

And the Jazz lady screwed the Farmers Market.

Anonymous said...

They got plenty from the town, 17:28. As does the centre. You cannot compare either of them to businesses in town that take their lumps & pay their taxes.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully this term we will not see the town run by committees. It has gotten so that the mere mention of a " committee initiative " raises hackles.