Santa Claus will come to town – one way or another.
If the internal drama taking place at the Hyack Festival Association prevents it from organizing this year’s Santa Claus Parade of Lights, Mayor Wayne Wright is confident that groups like the Downtown New Westminster Business Improvement Area (BIA) and others would step in to ensure the show goes on.
“We’ve got all the people who are going to step forward if we need to try and change the format or do something different. We will have the Christmas parade,” Wright told The Record. “It’s doable. The sooner that we know who is going to do it, if it’s Hyack that’s going to be doing it or if we have to jerry rig it for one year before they get themselves ready, that’s what we will do.”
Gavin Palmer, president of the Hyack Festival Association, also told The Record the parade will go on.
“It’s coming along,” he said of planning. “We have had a couple of meetings with the BIA. We are moving forward. We have a commitment that we will put on a Santa Claus Parade.”
While the saga unfolding at the Hyack Festival Association is “not bearing well on the organization,” Wright said the city is looking to get more information at an Oct. 1 meeting with groups that organize many of the city’s festivals. Hyack, which organizes events including the Hyack International Parade, Concerts on the Quay and the Santa Claus Parade of Lights, will be among the groups presenting to council.
“We will be listening to whatever their proposal is going to be. With all honesty, we have to see what their situation is. It’s very fluid right now,” Wright said. “Nobody knows who’s who in the zoo.”
The saga began when Hyack’s executive fired executive director Douglas Smith on July 31, without approval of the board of directors. The board then asked Smith to return for a month, without prejudice, which meant he could still pursue legal action for his dismissal.
Smith, along with event coordinator Lillian D’Souza, left their employment with the association last week. Since then, the Uptown Property Group has withdrawn its involvement in the Uptown Live, which it cosponsored with Hyack, and Key West Ford is reassessing its involvement with Hyack.
Each year, the City of New Westminster provides the Hyack Festival Association with more than $150,000 in funding and in-kind services to deliver services and events on the city’s behalf. The city hasn’t targeted its funds to any specific initiatives being undertaken by Hyack, but funds go toward the parade, the city’s float and the ambassador program.
“We don’t want to lose some of these things. If they are going to change some of these things we need to know,” Wright said. “The biggest issue, I’m sure, is we don’t know their financial position. We are not there to bail them out of a problem they’ve got. Our moneys were put forward in good faith that they’d be spending them on the city in the proper way.”
The association’s board recently suspended all travel and parades in the Pacific Northwest while it deals with its internal issues, which may have created some legal bills.
The application deadline for the City of New Westminster’s 2014 partnership grants is Nov. 1, 2013.
“If Hyack does not have everything in line and we are not comfortable with it, we will just wait and see until we find out what happens with them before we make any commitments,” Wright said the 2014 grant. “I think that is the safest way for everybody.”
Palmer said the association is working on its grant proposal to the city.
“There are some divisions going on. We are trying to put that to one side and get on with the business. There are a couple of members creating a lot of problems. That is not the core of the group, that is not the core of the organization,” he said. “It’s upsetting. It’s frustrating. It’s disruptive. However, the core objectives will be met as they have for 42 years.”
