Will it still be Founder's Day without a parade?

WGBPA committee recommendation is to move parade to Halloween weekend

By Kara Chalmers

The 18th annual Founder's Day celebration in Willow Glen may not feature one of its main events this year, because the parade may move to Halloween weekend.

Members of the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association (WGBPA) are teetering on the brink of a decision that may mean no parade on Founder's Day for the first time in about a dozen years.

The Founder's Day committee, made up mostly of members of the association, recommended at its July 20 meeting that WGBPA change the date of the parade. The association will decide on the matter as soon as it hears from the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association, says Demetri Rizos, business manager of WGBPA. The change would not necessarily set a precedent for years to come, he says.

"We did not want to cancel the parade," Rizos said at the meeting. "We are aware of how important the parade is to the community."

Jerry Caravelli, past president and honorary member of WGBPA, who is on this year's Founder's Day committee, suggested moving the parade to Halloween, thus reviving a Willow Glen tradition he remembers from his youth. As a chairman of previous Founder's Days, he says it is physically impossible to have a parade on the same day vendors set up shop on the Avenue.

"But let's not disband [the parade]," Caravelli said. "Let's start a new tradition. Try it on Halloween."

According to Chris Carris, owner of the Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company on Lincoln, many residents may object to moving the parade.

"That's what Founder's Day is--a parade," Carris says. "Founder's Day is a tradition here. It's not something that's easily altered. It can be, but we need to be sensitive."

According to Rizos, there are three main reasons to postpone the parade. First, the Founder's Day committee voted in March to have vendors line up their booths back to back along the middle of Lincoln Avenue during this year's two-day-long festivities. In the past, booths were lined up on the sidewalks, blocking some storefronts.

With the new setup, the street might be too narrow to have a parade this Founder's Day. There would be little room for spectators, and with all the children and automobiles that are traditionally in the parade, the festive event could be hazardous, Rizos says.

Second, the shifting of the parade will enhance Halloween in Willow Glen, which attracts thousands of trick-or-treaters to Lincoln Avenue each year. Because there are so many children walking the Avenue that night, it may be safer to block Lincoln off to cars and have the Founder's Day parade then, according to Rizos. In addition, on Halloween, the parade won't have to compete with the booths for attention.

The third reason is that the WGBPA member who organized the parade for the past few years is unavailable this year.

"The parade is a real logistical nightmare," said Jeannie Caton, one of the chairpersons of the Founder's Day committee, noting that it takes a lot of patience and organizational skills to coordinate a parade.

"But it is a real integral part of the celebration within the community. In shifting [the parade], we're giving it more emphasis."

Carris says other possibilities should be considered before definitely giving up on the idea of having the parade on Founder's Day weekend. For example, he says, the parade could run up one side of the booths and down the other. Or the booths could be positioned at the curb during the parade, and be moved to the middle of the street as soon as the parade ends.

"But we don't want to do anything that's unsafe," Carris adds. "I still think we can have the parade. It'd be more like a conga line than a parade. There are different ways to take care of the logistics. It seems that people are just thinking one way."

Shutting down the street and paying for a police presence on Halloween will be an additional expense for WGBPA. The association will form a committee around the time of the parade to deal with its organization.

"If it were up to me, I wouldn't change it," says Carris. "I would set it up to do both, have the booths and the parade. But I'm only one vote on the business association."

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