The Lawrence Arts Center will be asking the city for an additional $100,000 for the Free State Festival at this today’s City Commission meeting (see here for current LAC funding)  The following is a quote from their request that appears to assume that what will be built on 9th will be used as infrastructure for Free State Festival.

 

“There is no mention of the Free State Festival in the March, April, May, June 3 or June 27 minutes.” said Phil Collison, 9th Street CAC member, ELNA Board Member, and Property owner along 9th street in affected area.  In a letter to City Commissioners, Collison noted,

“In fact, the first mention of the Free State Festival is in the July 29 minutes and those are denials that the street project is being built for any specific venue. Those minutes state, “The grant says that the street will be the showcase for Free State Festival events.” Response: “The specific direction that was given to el dorado was to incorporate language about the project not becoming an entertainment corridor in a way that stood out and wasn’t buried within the document. The design team would never pursue this project as a sanctioned entertainment corridor”.

Regarding the funding source, from yesterday’s Lawrence Journal-World:  “As part of its 2016 budget, the city has created a grant process for events to seek out transient guest tax dollars. But the program, which has a total budget of $150,000, is only in beginning talks and hasn’t yet begun accepting applications.”

Here is the link to their full request on the City’s website and a link to the full agenda.  Also on today’s agenda, LAC will be requesting “the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission that the City of Lawrence partner with the Lawrence Arts Center in its application for the National Endowment for the Humanities Our Town Grant”.