WGNA will hire event coordinator for festival

WGNA to help keep Founder's Day costs down

By Kate Carter

The Willow Glen Neighborhood Association board last week approved negotiating a contract with an event coordinator to help it plan this year's Founder's Day festival.

"We're still not 100 percent sure as to what exactly this event will be," WGNA Vice President Helen Solinski said at the board's March 12 meeting. "We need to scale the event to what we think is reasonable."

Solinski and WGNA board member Margaret Hardy have been leading the association's efforts to plan the event, tentatively scheduled for Sept. 8. WGNA President John Gibbs and other board members have also been involved.

The group has established a tentative budget for the event of about $25,000 and has submitted a request to the city's office of cultural affairs for a $7,000 grant. The group hopes to solicit sponsorships and possibly sell T-shirts or mugs at the event to help defray costs.

Gibbs said they are trying to focus on the popular parts of former Founder's Days and include those in a possibly smaller-scaled, more family-oriented event, which could include a parade down Lincoln Avenue and a barbecue at Willow Glen Elementary School.

The Willow Glen Business and Professional Association was the lead sponsor of Founder's Day for about a decade until it cancelled last year's event weeks before it was scheduled. The neighborhood association took on the task last December of submitting a preliminary letter for the city grant, and has been in the lead of this year's event ever since.

"Every week we are more and more owning the event," Gibbs said. "That both excites and scares me. This is a bit of a leap of faith for us, but I do believe it is our mission."

The board expressed apprehension about planning and paying for the event. Gibbs said he approved the proposed event coordinator, Susan Cooney with Songman Entertainment in San Jose, however, because she has said she will plan an event within the association's financial limits and fundraising efforts and will assist with fundraising herself.

WGNA treasurer Jim Gardner said it was important to make sure their fundraising exceeds their expenditures.

"WGNA could make a contribution to the event, but it doesn't want to underwrite it," he said.

The group said it hopes to engage a steering committee, made up of non-board members, to lead the event planning. It also hopes to hold a community meeting for the planning of the event in the next few weeks. WGNA board member Larry Ames said planning the event could help invigorate the organization and its membership.

"It will give us something to do other than complain about traffic all the time," Larry Ames said.

Some ideas the group is toying with include having local school students enter possible logos into a contest, with the winner printed on T-shirts and other items. Also, the group "would prefer that it's not an alcohol-driven event" as has been the case with previous Founder's Days, and wouldn't be allowed to serve alcohol at the elementary school, either.

In other association business, board member Cathy Marshall was able to get Palm Haven in touch with United Neighborhoods to get nonprofit status for donations to its efforts to restore its neighborhood pillars.

Former District 6 City Councilwoman Nancy Ioni made a presentation to the board expressing concern that the city would approve a $19 million expansion of the fire department's fire training facility near the Los Gatos Creek north of Willow Glen. She said the area was designated in the Midtown Specific Plan and the city's Greenprint master plan to be a park as well as accommodate a trail along the creek, and that the expansion would jeopardize those plans.

WGNA board member Harold Schapelhouman, also a firefighter for the San Mateo County Fire Department, said he didn't think the site was planned for the permanent training facility.

"We will have to keep an eye on that site either way," Gibbs said.

Gibbs also announced that the next community meeting to discuss plans for a Lincoln Avenue master plan will be March 21 at 7 p.m. at Willow Glen Elementary School.

"I'm hoping as many people are as engaged as at the first one," he said.

The board is also looking for a topic for its May general meeting and is asking for suggestions.

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