Fayetteville (NC) Reduced to Begging For Taxpayer Dollars

Hoping to get some of over $5 million in taxpayer monies, the Fayetteville Festival of Flight may be left up the creek. It overestimated how many attendees would enjoy the (reportedly fantastic) show; and some of its vendors are still looking to get paid. The event took place last May, when this young girl got to sit in performer Mike Goulian's ship.

According to Michael Clinebell in the Fayetteville Observer, the nonprofit Festival of Flight organization is perhaps a quarter-million dollars short.

Four vendors, all of whom were owed less than $250, have been paid in full. The thirty-one others have been given checks for $250 each, the extent the Festival is able to pay, through additional donations. Still unpaid are some large bills, though: Clinebell says that, for instance, Aviation Week, which printed 20,000 programs, has an unpaid invoice for $100,000. The publisher, he says, agreed to take $10,000.

The paper says Freeman Companies, of Dallas (TX), which did the work of putting up and taking down the exhibits, is owed some $86,000. There are several other sizeable creditors.

Even so, the paper thinks Executive Committee head "Mac" Healey, Dr. Franklin Clark, vice chairman; Stuart Walters, secretary and treasurer; George Breece; and Loleta Wood Foster, could be personally responsible for the bills. Healey has said he's not contemplating ditching the responsibility through bankruptcy.

The committee's next step, the Observer reports, is, "...to state legislators asking for state help." Foul up an event; get taxpayers to take the burden: it's the American way. Healey, though, said in a letter that he doesn't think it should be that way. He thinks some of the monies already set aside for the centennial celebration should have been available: "The North Carolina Legislature previously approved over five million dollars to help communities throughout the state celebrating flight. All of the funding was appropriated to the Outer Banks area for their celebration. Our community's Festival of Flight received none of that funding."

We were not able to reach officials for comment, over the weekend. The Governor may indeed be on the hook, though. [Note his press release, issued on opening day, linked below, as well as the Centennial's 'partners' note --ed.]

FMI: www.house.gov/etheridge/Press-FestivalFinal.htm; www.centennialofflight.gov/partners/fest2003.htm