Edgewood Wal-Mart and Others Assist During Funding Crisis For Music Festival
By Chuck Ring
As is usual, Wal-Mart and its employees show their community spirit in times of need. Above, Edgewood Wal-Mart Manager James Torres presents a check in the amount of $1500 to Wildlife West volunteer and kitten (Mountain Lion) buddy, Bill Brown. This donation was made to help fund this year’s music festival.
Following Edgewood’s governing body’s failure to follow through on funding of this years music festival, Wildlife West Nature Park has found that it is in dire need of funds to meet its obligations under a contract signed when the city passed the funding during last fiscal year’s budget process. The funding was not forthcoming due to an initial Edgewood Attorney’s opinion that the funding by Edgewood amounted to a violation of the state’s anti-donation clause. Although it seems that the attorney has now come full circle Attorney twists, then turns Edgewood’s governing body has not moved to fund the festival. Discussion by the governing body during one council meeting focused on the possibility of the Town of Edgewood funding and operating the festival in future years; an idea which certainly has not been thought out to any extent as will be seen once a pencil is put to paper regarding the matter.
Citizens and civic minded businesses, such as Liberty Square Development, Mail and Copy, TechSmiths, the Doghouse, Howard Calkins, Myra Oden, Sue West, Rita-Loy Simmons, Linda Hill, Gary Hill, Furniture Connection, WeckTech and others have moved forward to fund the festival through flea-markets, donations and other means. But, it appears that there will still be a substantial shortfall for the project. There is a window of opportunity of approximately two weeks to raise additional funds. Citizens will have an opportunity to purchase raffle tickets for valuable items at Smith’s and Wal-Mart parking lots on Saturday, July 26th. Anyone wishing to contribute or otherwise offer their assistance is asked to contact Roger Alink at Wildlife West Nature Park at 505-281-7655. If there is no answer, please consider leaving your number for a return call. Roger can also be contacted by email:
Don’t forget the music festival 2008 Music Festival
One Response “Edgewood Wal-Mart and Others Assist During Funding Crisis For Music Festival”
Kudos to Walmart and those other perceptive citizens who recognize the value of Wildlife West to our local economy.
With regard to the dragging of feet (or total inaction) by various members of the current town administration, I guess one might conclude that we are begining to reap the “benefits” of our votes in the most recent election?
Edgewood wake up!