By Becky Polaski

Staff Writer

A motion by Mayor Sally Geyer to cut the $4,000 budgeted to the St. Marys Chamber of Commerce in 2010 to fund the City’s Christmas lights was shot down by other members of City Council during their budget meeting on Monday night. 

“I’d like to knock the $4,000 out of the budget and let the Chamber decide how they want to do the Christmas lights with their $6,500,” Geyer said.

Geyer stated the City should not have to contribute money for the Christmas lighting and the Chamber should have the responsibility of funding the annual holiday decorations.

Councilman Dick Dornisch noted that an incredible number of hours and cost go into setting up the City’s Christmas light display every year.

Councilman Denny Nero supported Geyer’s proposal, stating that the Chamber receives enough contributions each year to fund the City’s fireworks display, which is only a one day event.

“It is only a one day thing and they get $25,000,” Nero said of the annual fireworks display.

Geyer explained that she was only proposing the cut in order to reduce the deficit in the City’s 2010 budget.

“I’m looking at this that we have this capitol budget here and we’re spending $4,000 for Christmas lights that are on for six weeks out of the year,” Geyer said. “We could use the money to reduce the amount of our deficit.”

St. Marys Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Sally Wilson was in attendance at the meeting and addressed Council regarding the various costs and procedures that go into putting up and taking down the Christmas lights each year.

“We looked at this ourselves when the budget was starting to get tight,” Wilson said. “We went out and we tried to get people to bid it and everyone we talked to said they would not touch it because of the amount of work that is involved.”

Wilson added that the Chamber does not benefit from putting up the City’s Christmas lights each year.

“The Chamber benefits nothing from doing this,” Wilson said. “We don’t get anything out of this. It is the community. It is a community event. It is something the community celebrates.”

Wilson also noted that the Christmas lights have already begun to be placed throughout the downtown area and if their budget was cut they would not have the money to pay to take them down after the holiday season because that funding comes from their 2010 budget.

“As I mentioned last week when I was here, we’re already experiencing a $12,000 shortfall in our budget for 2010, so if you cut us, honestly we seriously would be looking at probably not having Christmas lights,” Wilson said. “It is not a bluff. And you can’t go to the businesses again. We go to the businesses constantly and they’re having difficulties as well. I don’t think it is the businesses responsibility to provide Christmas lights.”

It was also noted by Council members that the $4,000 allotted from the City for the Christmas lighting has never gone up over the years.

“It is nice to have the Christmas lights and all that but we’re looking at a deficit here (in the City budget),” Geyer said. “Everybody has their hand out. Everybody thinks what they do is so important that the taxpayers should pay for it, but I’m looking at these numbers where we’re at here. Somewhere along the line we’re going to be raising taxes because we’re spending money and spending money because everybody says ‘well our thing is so important that we need the money.’”

A vote was taken with the result being 5 to 2 with members of Council opposing cutting the Christmas light funding. Geyer and Nero were the only members of Council to vote in favor of the proposal.