Council Approves More Sesquicentennial Spending

The Manassas City Council voted 5-1 to approve the reimbursement of funds totaling $123K to Historic Manassas, Inc. to make up for weak ticket sales during the summer Sesquicentennial events.

According to city documents, Historic Manassas, Inc. (HMI) was requested by the city to handle the Civil War commemorative events, held from July 21 to July 24 of this year.

There were not enough tickets sold to cover all of the expenses incurred by HMI during the events, which totalled $453,127 , and they asked the city for a reimbursement totalling $123,332 to make up the difference. 

Cindy funding for the events totals $275,150 and ticket sales produced nearly $54,645 in revenue, leaving HMI with a total revenue of $329,795.

According to the News and Messenger, the lone nay vote came from Councilman Marc Aveni who agreed it was a lot of money and wanted to see if HMI could come up with some of the money. 

But HMI President Mark Olson said the organization needed the money to continue operating.

Those councilmembers who voted 'yes' agreed that HMI is a valuable asset to the city and the Sesquicentennial events were a success despite the low ticket sales.

City documents state that while the events received positive feedback from visitors and residents, the extreme heat had a negative impact on direct ticket sales from tourists and HMl's ability to cover transportation costs related to minimizing the traffic impacts to City residents.

Do you agree that HMI does a lot for the city? Would you have voted to provide the full reimbursement or look for the organization to cover some or all of the losses; after all it is the taxpayers that pay.