Goombay Festival organizer abruptly quits

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

Fed up with what they allege were insults and “vicious personal attacks” by a competing group, the organizers of the popular Goombay Festival abruptly pulled out of this year’s event and likely will not return in the future.

Clearly stunned by the unexpected withdrawal by members of Bahama Village Goombay Festival, Inc. (BVGF), at the July 7 Key West City Commission Meeting, commissioners voted 5-1 to hand the festival reins over to a competing group, Key West Goombay Festival, Inc. (KWGF), which had tried unsuccessfully to oust BVGF last year. The lone vote against KWGF was cast by Commissioner Tony Yaniz, who said that BVGF had received great reviews for its management of the festival for the past three years.

“I am begging you not to walk away from this,” he told Rodney Gullatte, Jr., the head of BVGF.

But that plea fell on deaf ears. Gullatte read a statement of resignation to commissioners, who were considering competing resolutions at their meeting over which group would win control of the festival that celebrates the heritage of Bahama Village and kicks off Fantasy Fest each year. Asked to rescue the festival in 2012 when it was on the verge of being cancelled after festival organizers were socked with a host of complaints, Gullatte said his group had faced three years of dissention and antagonism bent on undermining it.

“This sentiment has used vicious personal attacks and disrespect and put down members of our community for the past three years. They would have you believe that members of our gay community, Cubans, African Americans, Bahamians and white Bahamians should not be managing or leading this festival,” he said, referring to the diverse make-up of the BVGF.

Indeed, at the city commission meeting almost exactly one year ago that pitted the two groups against each other for control of the festival, several members of KWGF went before commissioners to tout their long term connections to Bahama Village.

““I am not a Johnny-Come-Lately to Key West,” said Glenwood Lopez, half-brother of City Commissioner Clayton Lopez and head of the challenging group during that 2014 meeting. “I am a fourth generation Key Wester and have lived here for 68 years… None of the [BVGF] incumbents live in Bahama Village. None have any vested interest in Bahama Village other than Goombay.”

Glenwood Lopez, who is still head of KWGF, told commissioners at the July 7 meeting that the criticisms of BVGF were not widespread.

“There was no antagonism from anyone other than people just vying for the festival. Certainly that’s not my behavior,” he said. “We were concerned about having, being able to sponsor the Goombay Festival. How the chips would fall is how they would fall.”

But Gullatte pointed to a meeting three weeks ago between city staffers and members of the BVGF and KWGF. Things got so heated that someone suggested the festival organizer be selected with a coin toss, he said, adding that more “unjustified, baseless accusations and insulting remarks” were made by members of KWGF.

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