CPS responds to Sunset Celebration guidelines

 

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

The Cultural Preservation Society has inched closer to meeting Key West demands for the renewal of its contract to manage the nightly Sunset Celebration in Mallory Square.

 

The CPS Board of Directors met Monday, June 2, to discuss a May 23 letter from City Manager Bob Vitas outlining the city’s requirements to renew the lease, which expired in March. CPS, which has managed Celebration for the past 10 years, has been continuing on a month by month basis while the lease negotiations continue.

 

Citing financial difficulties at CPS as well as on-going disputes within the non-profit organization’s membership, Vitas’s letter laid out changes to the use agreement of Mallory Square that CPS would have to make in order for the lease to be renewed. Those changes include several significant alterations to the current CPS operations guidelines regulating who can perform or sell goods on the Square, what the fees would be and who is eligible to vote on any guideline changes.

 

“After careful review of the current operating procedures and financial position of the Cultural Preservation Society, the city has concluded that implementing changes to the use agreement will benefit all participants and relieve CPS from the financial burdens that have continue to drive up participation costs,” Vitas wrote in the letter.

 

The CPS board on Monday voted to submit a proposal back to the city that addressed several of the issues Vitas outlined in his letter, according to Wendell Winko, chair of a CPS subcommittee working on lease negotiations. The proposal accepted one of the city’s demands, that all Celebration participants pay a fee. Currently, artisans and food vendors pay a $20 nightly fee but only performers selling merchandise in conjunction with their act are required to pay the fee.

 

“The performers are a participant. The artisans are a participant. The vendors are a participant. Everybody is a participant. There are nightly fees and that’s it,” Winko said, adding, “If everybody pays, we should be all right. Otherwise, we’re in financial trouble.”

 

Despite the $20 nightly and $600 monthly fees currently collected by CPS – there are also sliding rates for working 10 and 20 days a month – the organization is facing serious financial difficulties. However, Winko said the CPS board did not support a rate increase from $20 to $25 a night. Although the city is proposing to cut the current $600 monthly fee in half, the proposed $300 charge would require participants not to miss more than five days in the previous month to remain eligible for the lower rate. Winko said his survey of the full-time Celebration participants shows that most work approximately 22 days a month, which would require them to pay $550 at the $25 rate.

 

“I can guarantee there won’t be a lot of people working down there for $25. They just can’t afford it,” Winko said.

 

As for another contentious issue revolving around who can vote on Sunset Celebration guidelines, the CPS board agreed to the city requirement that only actual Celebration participants will be allowed to cast a ballot. Currently any CPS member can vote on changing the guidelines whether they work in Mallory Square or not. Winko said the CPS board wants to require a two-thirds participant vote for guideline approval. The city said it wants 75 percent approval.

 

“That’s the starting point,” Winko said about the CPS lease proposal to the city. “We agreed to submit the proposal for negotiating purposes. Now we’ll try to get a meeting set up and try to hammer it all out.”

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