news story / By Bob Doran

Keep Off the Grass

Concern over lawn care costs threatens several Arcata festivals

(May 14, 2009)  Things looked grim for the North Country Fair three years ago when the fair was hijacked by a profit-minded promoter. The Same Old People, the loose-knit volunteer crew that had put on the art, craft and music festival on the Arcata Plaza at the end of each summer since 1974, regrouped and, with support from the City Council, managed to take back the fair.

But now another threat looms — this time coming from city agencies demanding new fees and changing rules on use of the Plaza. Among the newest of those rules: demands that event organizers take financial responsibility for the state of the grass growing beneath partiers’ feet.

GALLERY >

“This could be the last year of the North Country Fair,” said fair manager Matthew Cook. “It’s gotten so expensive to deal with the city that we’ve had to raise our booth fees to the point where we don’t know if we’ll sell them.”

This week Cook and the Same Old People’s board of directors sent a letter to the council asking for help. After laying out some history on the fair and on the increased use of the town square for special events like the Oyster Festival and the Pride Festival, the Fourth of July Jubilee, they acknowledged the impact on city services and on the Plaza.

“The pressure on staff has increased accordingly,” they wrote, “and this has been made worse by recent economic recession. The City’s response has been to shift this pressure to the community groups that sponsor public events. Insurance, damaged grass, garbage, use of alcohol, security, police, non-profit requirements — problems worked out years ago — now have to be annually re-negotiated, with new processes and new expense, more and more of it borne by the people who have done this for decades as a gift to the community.”

According to Cook the biggest problem is a new restriction on how the Arcata Plaza is utilized. “They’ve told us we can no longer use the grass, which accounts for about $6,000 of our booth space,” he said. “We stand to lose about 30 booths. There’s no other place to put them.”

Why no booths on the grass? “They claim that there are now so many events that the grass can’t handle it,” said Cook. “For years the Parks and Rec would always say ‘Oh, the grass will grow back. Don’t worry about it.’ Now all of a sudden they say grass isn’t growing back anymore.”

As head of the City of Arcata’s Recreation Dept., Heather Stevens is the gatekeeper for special event applications. Since she’s only been on the job a year, she says she hasn’t seen any change in permitting rules for use of the Plaza. In fact, the rules laid out by the city say, “Booth set up on grass surfaces is discouraged and requires special approval.”

1 2 3 NEXT PAGE >SHARE