Marysville Strawberry Festival too important to let end

It would be a very sad day for Marysville and Tulalip citizens if the Strawberry Festival was cancelled (“State: Secret deal endangers Marysville Strawberry Festival,” The Herald, April 18).

This event has been a great asset to the city of Marysville and local businesses. For the past 50-plus years it has grown into a statewide event thanks to the hard work and dedication of former Maryfest Committee members.

The Tulalip Tribes has been one of the biggest donors for this event and as a tribal member I am proud we can work with the Maryfest Committee to help in this event.

The festival also brings in numerous vendors for the food and miscellaneous bazaar items as well as car shows that provides a full day of enjoyment to the public.

In the past the Maryfest Committee has been volunteers from the local community until the latest incident involving committee volunteer from other communities that put this event at risk of being cancelled due to a lawsuit by volunteers from other communities and an agreement where a “volunteer” on the committee was to be paid $175,000 to settle a committee problem. I don’t consider that as “volunteer” work.

June will be here before we know it and it will be a big disappointment to the entire community if there is no parade and other events for the festival.

So my thanks go to all the former committee members that volunteered and handled this event in the past.

Virginia Carpenter

Tulalip