Reggae Rising falls

Good riddance to would-be reggae profiteer Dimmick. Let him take his pathetic scam to Mendo or somewhere else if he is able to fool the people there with his ridiculous line of bullcrap.

Meanwhile, all the people he owes money to here in Humboldt should pool their resources and get a lawyer and sue his shuckin’ jivin’ ass. Can’t come up with the cash? Oh, too bad, so sad. Perhaps the creditors will have to take his ranch. Such a pity.

Now the really funny part would be if the creditors sue him, take the ranch, and next year they lease it to the Mateel for the real Humboldt reggae fest, Reggae on the River. Now that would be some righteous karma.

So, after several two-week extensions, and despite Kirk Girard’s shameless shilling for Dimmick and Dimmick’s own economic blackmail tactics (echoed and amplified by Girard at the last meeting) the Planning Commission has unanimously rejected Dimmick’s Conditional Use Permit.

I guess its one thing to hijack a C.U.P. from a non-profit that spent years building up the credibility of the event, but quite another thing to put together an event and a C.U.P. application on your own. What’s more, it turns out that organizing a large music festival in such a way that you can actually pay your bills and meet your obligations to public safety agencies is actually just a wee bit more challenging than just inheriting a ranch. Go figure.

From the Contra Costa Times article: “Ticket holders have been waiting on the commission’s decision for several weeks. At a previous meeting, there was speculation that Dimmick had already sold 2,000 tickets for the event. At Thursday’s meeting, Dimmick said that number was actually “well below” 2,000.”

In other words, Dimmick lied to the Planning Commission at the last meeting when he was still trying to keep his ability to sell more tickets alive. The CCT article also quotes Dimmick as saying that it is “general practice” for festivals not to reimburse ticket holders.

So, I wonder how many tickets were sold during the four weeks while the Commission dithered and stalled. In other words, how many more fans were ripped off as a result of Girard’s shilling for Dimmick.

Based on Dimmick’s weak-ass application, one has to wonder whether he knew full well that he wasn’t going to pull this off and was just seeing how many reggae fans he could sucker into buying tickets to the non-event. Thanks in large part to Girard, he may have suckered quite a few, but not as many as he wanted to. Now that part IS “sad.”

What’s really disgusting about the T-S coverage (reprinted in the Contra Costa Times) is that they don’t even MENTION the Mateel’s Reggae on the River. Like Kirk Girard at the last Planning Commission meeting, they just pretend that Dimmick’s for-profit festival was the only Reggae Fest around. They give no context, no history, just handwringing over the “loss” due to the cancelation of Dimmick’s festival. No analysis of how this might benefit the Mateel’s NON-PROFIT Reggae on the River in future years. Seriously weak reporting.

Too bad Kirk Girard and compliant Commissioners gave Dimmick four additional weeks to sell these non-refundable tickets to unwary out-of-area Reggae fans. At the last Planning Commission meeting, one of the Commissioners raised this issue, but acting on Girard’s guidance, the Commission gave him another two weeks to sell tickets, despite all the signs that he would fail to get the permit. Ticket-holders left holding worthless paper should direct their ire to Dimmick’s all-too-willing accomplice, Kirk Girard, as well as the Planning Commission dogs who let the staff tails wag them yet again.

After searching around a bit, I did find a statement, in rather small print, on the “Info” page of their Facebook account that said:

“The Dimmick Ranch has worked day and night for the past 5 years trying to keep this World Class Music Festival alive and well….We all feel the deep pain and sense of loss of this year’s Reggae Rising Festival, but we are determined to make Reggae Rising 2011 phenomenal.”

But the main reggaerising.com website, and the main Facebook page have, in large typeface, the “August 6, 7, 8 Dimmick Ranch, Humboldt County claim”, and I had to look around quite a bit to find the above statement on the Info page of their Facebook account, and even then had to click “read more” to get to the end of the statement where they finally refer to the “loss of this year’s Reggae Rising Festival.”

And zero info on potential refunds or even whether they’d accept these ticket’s at next year’s supposed “Reggae Rising 2011.”

It’s been a couple of days now: this is really irresponsible. Perhaps its just more incompetence, or a desire to delay fans who will ineveitably begin to demand refunds when they realize they’ve paid for admission to a non-existent event, but in any case it certainly doesn’t look good.

I don’t know if they do tickets by mail-order, but if they do, leaving the impression that the event is still scheduled to go ahead as planned might lead some fans to go ahead and send in their ticket orders (and money). I hope its just Dimmick & Co not having their act together, and not a conscious effort to fool potential ticket-buyers.

MOLLYO said: “I’m not entirely educated about what has led to the sad state of affairs RR is in at present.”

Apparently not, especially because you go on to say:

“those peeps who seem dead set on hating and harming …the most awesome Reggae music fest that ever lived.”

Correction: The most awesome Reggae music fest that ever lived…and STILL lives, was and still IS the Mateel’s non-profit Reggae on the River which is all set to go, and will take place on three awesome days in August at Benbow.

Bruno and Dimmick’s Reggae Rising Ripoff was just an attempted privatization and profiteering scam by Dimmick and Bruno, who sought to destroy the Mateel’s non-profit Reggae on the River and replace it with their own for-profit monstrosity, which has now thankfully crashed and burned, due to a remarkable display of incompetence and malfeasonace by Tom Dimmick and possibly helped along by a bit of Karmic Payback.

Look, the guy not only failed to pay workers, vendors and other creditors for last year’s performance and then tried to bring in an outside company to run things so he wouldn’t have to pay those former workers and vendors — he even failed to pay what he owed to various public safety (police and fire) agencies, failed to pay the local school system for his use of their buses as shuttles, etc.

Meanwhile, the Mateel’s Reggae on the River, the original, continues on and has grown stronger every year, missing only the first year when Bruno and Dimmick pulled the rug out from under them at the last minute.

Unlike the imposter Reggae Rising Ripoff, the Mateel’s non-profit Reggae on the River has its permits, has paid all its bills and generated revenues for non-profit causes, maintains good working relationships with local public safety agencies, and is going ahead as scheduled at Benbow, with some 3,000 fans and a great line-up of performers over three days.

And the best part is, instead of lining the pockets of a couple of greedy individuals, all net proceeeds of Reggae on the River benefit the non-profit Mateel Community Center and all of its great programs here in the community!

Better yet, let Reggae Rising fall for good, and work to rebuilf the original, NON-PROFIT Reggae on the River to a 3 day event with a larger audience.

I talked to a Park Ranger today, and he said that yesterday he had talked to Mrs. Arthur, owner of French’s Camp, where a large and vibrant NON-PROFIT Reggae on the River festival was held for many years According to the Ranger, in the wake of Dimmick’s Epic GREEDFAIL, Mrs. Arthur is seriously considering contracting with the Mateel to bring Reggae on the River back to that site for next year. From his description of their conversation it sounds like negotiations for the triumphant return of Reggae on the River to French’s Camp may already be underway.

If so, that would be great news for everyone… except a certain incompetent non-event organizer, reggae impressario-wannabe, and ticket-sales ripoff artist extraordinaire and his dwindling coterie of lackeys and cronies..