Festival wants debt forgiven

Published 8:58 pm Sunday, July 8, 2007

SNOHOMISH – Organizers of the Kla Ha Ya Days summer festival are asking the city to forgive about $20,000 in debt for police and other services.

The city supports the festival, but it needs more information to decide whether to shoulder the debt with taxpayer money, city officials said.

“It’s not clear how they got where they are,” Mayor Randy Hamlin said Thursday. “It’s not clear how they are going to change that course.”

The City Council discussed the issue Tuesday and directed festival organizers to prepare a financial report of the four-day festival. The council plans to review the report and make a decision after this year’s festival, which is set to take place from July 19 to 22.

The Kla Ha Ya Days Festival, a nonprofit group that organizes the festival, owes the city $19,463. Most of the debt is for the police service that the city has provided since 2004.

This year, the city has agreed to provide the festival’s police service for $7,785.

Bad weather conditions, rising insurance rates and loss of key personnel have caused the festival’s revenue to drop, Dallas Van Dyke, the group’s president, wrote in a letter to the city.

“We find ourselves in an extremely difficult financial position,” Van Dyke wrote in the letter.

The group has about 100 volunteers and no paid staff, Van Dyke said. Its annual budget is about $90,000, which comes from activity fees and sponsors, he said.

With this year’s festival nearing, Snohomish TOP Food &Drug helped the group raise money. The store celebrated its renovation using a 45-foot-long grill to barbecue bratwursts Friday.

The store donated proceeds from the event to Kla Ha Ya Days.

Kla Ha Ya Days, which began in the 1930s, draws as many as 15,000 people to Snohomish, population about 8,700. The festival features activities including a frog-jumping contest, parade and salmon barbecue.

City Councilman Doug Thorndike said he wants the festival to pay the debt and future bills to the city, like other special events do.

“I’d like to see the event pay its own way,” Thorndike said.

The festival has been held in town for a long time, and it draws a crowd and helps local businesses, Thorndike said.

“I think it’s a wonderful community festival. I’d like it to continue,” he said.