When I moved to Fishers, after marrying my lovely wife Jane in May of 1991, the Fishers Freedom Festival was preparing for its third event. Our home was located in the Sunblest subdivision, and we lived only a few blocks from Holland Park, the center of the festival.
It has always been held just before the Fourth of July, so as not to conflict with July Fourth celebrations in nearby communities, such as Carmel and Noblesville. That has been consistent since the first festival was held in Fishers during 1989.
My point is this – as a resident of Fishers for the past 26 years, I have always enjoyed the Fishers Freedom Festival. It has been an integral part of this community during the years of massive population growth. The summer season around here wouldn’t be the same without it.
I have covered Fishers news on this blog since January of 2012, nearly six years as of this writing, and I have observed a lot and covered a lot of issues locally during that time. Watching the Nickel Plate Rail Line and its future has been difficult for me, because my family enjoyed the Fair Train and other excursions, but the plans for a trail are appealing as well.
Change can be painful. It normally takes some time to know whether change is good or bad. Change is coming to the annual gala we have known as the Fishers Freedom Festival. I will attempt to tell the story as accurately as I can.
Trouble began brewing for the Fishers Freedom Festival for the last couple of years. The city had provided about $85,000 annually in direct cash to support the festival in recent years, and a sizeable amount of in-kind support from city departments valued at around $45,000 each year. The festival says its annual budget has been about $325,000.
The City of Fishers began to realize several local nonprofit organizations were asking for financial support. In the past, the festival and Conner Prairie received most (in some years all) the municipal funds expended for local nonprofit organizations.
Several members of the Fishers City Council began to push for more accountability of the public money from city coffers going to nonprofit groups. The city began insisting on written contracts with these nonprofits.
The Fishers City Council formed a committee to evaluate all requests for city financial assistance from these various local organizations as part of the 2018 budget process. The Fishers Freedom Festival submitted a request for assistance as part of that process.
This past August, the city announced which local nonprofit organizations would be receiving financial help from Fishers. The Fishers Freedom Festival was not on that list.
A number of deserving groups were included in the listing. Some examples include the child advocacy group Cherish, The Hamilton Southeastern Schools Foundation and Nickel Plate Arts. A Nov. 9 city news release said the Freedom Festival “was unable to demonstrate fiscal independence, and the nonprofit committee felt it was best to allocate the grant dollars to benefit multiple nonprofits in an effort to help a greater number of residents.”
I asked officials from the Fishers Freedom Festival whether they could run the 2018 event without city financial and in-kind support. The Festival is governed by a board of directors, as most nonprofit organizations are run. The board needed time to deliberate and would make an announcement when a decision had been reached.
The board made the announcement at 11:18 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 8. The Fishers Freedom Festival nonprofit organization would no longer have the financial means to operate another festival.
I went to bed before the announcement was released so I found out early Friday morning and started following up. I arranged to record a podcast interview with Freedom Festival Board President Don Dragoo. I then setup a podcast interview with City Council Member Brad DeReamer. That allowed me to get two very different perspectives on what had just happened.
You may listen to those podcast interviews at this link.
I had finished the interviews and was driving home to do all the technical details needed to get these very timely podcast interviews online. That was when I received a phone call from the city.
Mayor Scott Fadness was not pleased with one particular sentence in the Festival news release issued Nov. 9. Here is that sentence: “This August, the mayor and City Council decided to discontinue all funding, including in-kind staff service support, stating that the festival partnership does not fall within their city’s vision.”
The mayor insisted that he likes festivals and wants such events as part of the city’s fabric. “We’ve had lots of dialogue with the Fishers Freedom Festival about maybe evolving their event, or continue to adapt just like our city continues to adapt,” Mayor Fadness told me. “It was not in any way about ‘I don’t believe we should have festivals’ – nothing could be further from the truth.”
Based on all the information gleaned from the conversations I had on Nov. 9, here are a few facts I know:
- The 2018 festival will be held at the usual time, just before the Fourth of July.
- Activities will be held at Holland Park and the newly-remodeled Amphitheater downtown.
- There will be a parade, fireworks and entertainment.
- The Fishers Parks & Recreation Department will take the lead in planning and running the 2018 festival.
Here is one major point of contention between the city and the Freedom Festival board – how this will all come out financially. The Fishers Freedom Festival maintains it will cost the city more than the $85,000 in cash and $45,000 in-kind support to run the 2018 festival, since most of the festival volunteers are likely to sit-out the city’s 2018 festival for reasons I will get to later. The city claims it can run the festival with much less city funds than have been provided to the festival organization.
Which party is right? We will know by festival time next year.
It is no secret that personal animosities have played some part of this saga. No one wants to go on the record to talk about this, and I do not believe in reporting rumors, but I have gathered enough comments from various sides of this dispute to know some personality conflicts have had an impact on all this.
The city and the festival board looked at the future of the event in very different ways. The Freedom Festival organization was very centered on preserving the traditions of the festival going back to its origins in 1989. The festival board resisted major changes.
City officials clearly believe the festival cannot survive and grow without major changes that the city insists will preserve the major components of the festival’s traditions, such as the parade, fireworks and entertainment offerings. The city insists there are financial sources the festival board chose not to tap.
I am not here to tell you which side is right or wrong. I just want everyone to know the basics of why the festival is changing. I will leave it up to you to decide.
There are some hurt feelings about all this. I am hearing that most of the many volunteers the festival has had for a very long time are not inclined to help the city with the 2018 festival. City Councilman Brad DeReamer was clear in the podcast interview that the city would welcome those volunteers to be a part of the 2018 event. We will see.
Now, the city needs to begin gearing up for the 2018 festival. Mayor Fadness, City Council members and those heading-up city departments know everyone will be judging their performance on presenting the 2018 celebration. City officials have pulled off some big accomplishments of late, the most recent being the control of traffic in and out of IKEA, Portillo’s and TopGolf. The summer festival is just the latest challenge for that group.
There is one more item to consider in all this – we have no idea what the 2018 event will be called. The Fishers Freedom Festival organization owns the rights to that name – “Fishers Freedom Festival” – for the next 10 years. Board President Dragoo told me during the podcast interview that his organization plans to hold on to the naming rights.
If the city cannot work out a deal with the Freedom Festival Board, the city will need to come up with a new name for the festival. That is something to watch.
It is sad that the Fishers Freedom Festival board of directors and the City of Fishers could not come together and jointly find a way to continue the festival as partners. Now, the Fishers Freedom Festival will wind down its operations as an independent nonprofit organization over the next two years, according to my talk with Don Dragoo.
In a podcast interview I recorded many months ago, Mayor Fadness told me cities cannot stay in place – you are either moving forward or moving backward. Scott Fadness believes in Fishers moving forward on all fronts. He intends to move forward with the event we have known as the Fishers Freedom Festival. We will wait and see what happens in late June 2018.