As the Spark!Fishers Festival gears up for its first celebration, June 29 & 30, City Councilman John Weingardt says the city’s financial and in-kind contribution to this festival will be “very minimal.”

During a podcast interview with LarryInFishers on June 20th, Weingardt explained what he means by “very minimal.”

He points to the sponsorship money that, Weingardt says, “…provided substantially all the funding for this event.”

Weingardt told LarryInFishers that the city will provide services to the festival such as  public safety and support from the Department of Public Works.

“I don’t see us (the city)  having to come up with a tremendous  amount of money, nowhere near what we (the city) gave the Freedom Festival,” Weindgardt said.  “That’s from what I understand, I haven’t seen the numbers yet, but I think what you’re going to see is a better value proposition for our taxpayers and an event that’s going to be an event that will stand the test of time and be another tradition that will continue year after year.”

In 2016, The City of Fishers contributed $85,000 in cash to the Freedom Festival, and $45,000 in “in-kind” support.  In 2017, the city made the same in-kind contribution but cut the cash support to $45,000.

During the podcast, Councilman Weingardt told LarryInFishers he plans to run for re-election to his council seat in next year’s local election.

You can listen to the podcast with John Weingardt at this link.

Editor’s Note: Earlier versions of this story reported that the City of Fishers made cash contributions to the Fishers Freedom Festival of $85,000 in 2016 & 2017.  In fact, the city cut the cash support to $45,000 in 2017.  The story was corrected at 1:40pm Friday.   LarryInFishers regrets the error.