Park City mayor hopes to end arts fest's funding

Park City Mayor Dana Williams hopes to wean the Kimball Arts Festival from about $55,000 in public funds, a move that could force the annual summer event to ditch its host city.

"On one hand, the city says we're the most important event next to Sundance, and on the other hand, the mayor wants to take us off public funding," said Pam Crowe-Weisberg, executive director of the Kimball Arts Center. "We wouldn't be able to do it if we didn't have the city's support."

The center plans to hold its 37th annual festival in August on Park City's historic Main Street. It's the arts center's only fund-raiser and brings in more than $100,000. That money is used to run the free gallery and its various educational programs — both of which are assets to the community, Crowe-Weisberg said.

The festival now receives about $45,000 of in-kind city services, like extra bus routes and security, as well as about $10,000 from the parking fees the city collects over the event's four-day run.

The mayor's concern is that tax dollars are helping to feed a nonprofit group's fund-raiser at a time when the city has limited money for nonprofit grants.

About 1 percent of the Park City budget — about $300,000 annually — goes for the grants, Williams said. Meanwhile, the city receives about $1.8 million in grant requests from nonprofit groups.

Williams said it's difficult to decide who gets the money, but in the past two years, the City Council has "been more interested in helping groups that serve people with needs in the community," such as those that run a free health clinic and a domestic-violence center.

"The goal here is to basically get the Kimball Arts Center to the point that it's not something that's a line-item grant every year from the city," Williams said.

Unlike the Sundance Film Festival, a huge moneymaker for the city, the Kimball Arts Festival does not generate a lot of sales-tax revenue. What is made is basically given back to the festival, Williams said.

Sales taxes collected during the 2003 festival totaled about $22,000 for the city, said Alison Butz, project manager in the city's special-events department. That's about average for the event, which attracts 30,000-40,000 people.

"But because it's such a local event and a community event, it's something people identify Park City with in the summer." she said. "We do feel it's valuable."