Sunday, January 25, 2009

HP agrees with Ravinia on new fee

The City Council has negotiated an agreement with Ravinia Festival that should provide over 600k of much needed revenue to our community. Some of the funding will replace Ravinia's past contribution to the YEA event but will still host the event where donors and patrons can celebrate that special day.

These efforts were originally initiated by the entire City Council when we proposed a fee for bus rides from our downtown to and from the festival events. Ravinia, concerned about ridership revolt asked us to sit down to negotiate another type of revenue source. We voted Monday on this agreement that has been discussed over the past year.

Bottom line here is that we will be importing tax dollars from mostly out of town patrons to again reduce our dependence on our property taxes. As a not for profit Ravinia Festival does not pay property taxes but produces additional revenue to the city through sales and the food and beverage tax.

We are real lucky to have great partners like Ravinia Festival who are helping our community provide services to our citizens, schools, and other not for profits through this additional revenue. Being one of finest arts organizations in our nation, I thank them for their true commitment to the citizens of Highland Park.