Phila.'s Columbus Day Parade canceled

Philadelphia's 53-year-old Columbus Day Parade was canceled last night because of financial difficulties.

Members of the Columbus Day Committee of Philadelphia decided to concentrate instead on the Columbus Day Festival at Marconi Plaza on the same date, Sunday, Oct. 11, said Kathleen Murray, who coordinates Columbus Day events for City Council President Anna C. Verna, the parade's longtime chairwoman.

In the absence of a sustained fund-raising effort or a last-minute rescue by the state, the Columbus Parade Committee has come up about $30,000 short of the $50,000 it would take to run the parade, Murray said.

The Columbus Day Parade is the first major parade to be canceled since the city said it would no longer pick up the costs of policing parades and cleaning up afterward.

This year's Mummers Parade went on after a last-minute fund-raising effort, and the St. Patrick's Parade was able to continue after a last-minute injection of funds by among others, Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C., owner of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com.

Mayor Nutter's spokesman, Luke Butler, said last night that the administration has been working with the groups to reduce expenses "and make sure these types of events can go ahead."

"We absolutely agree that these types of parades and events are very important," Butler said. "We just simply can't afford to continue to waive these costs."

Murray said not all of the organization's financial problems could be laid at the city's feet. What the city would have charged for policing and cleaning amounted to about $12,000, she said.

Jody Della Barba, chairwoman of the Columbus Day Committee, still held out hope that the parade could be saved, but the outlook was bleak - "unless somebody comes up with that money, a fairy godmother or somebody."

The parade was going to honor one of its founders, Verna's late husband, Severino Verna, who died in June.

With three other parades struggling to march in the next few weeks, including the Steuben Day Parade on Saturday, the Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday, and the Pulaski Day Parade on Oct. 4, an umbrella organization representing six ethnic parades wrote Mayor Nutter yesterday to ask him to change the policy he instituted last fall, when the city's budget crisis became apparent.

At the time, Nutter said the city could no longer pay for parade expenses, such as police and streets crews.

"The unaffordable fees being charged this year threaten the parades' continued existence," wrote Michael Blichasz, speaking on behalf of the Greek, Irish, Puerto Rican, German, and Italian parades, as well as the Polish Pulaski event he organizes.

The German American organizers of the Steuben Day Parade said the event would proceed Saturday, but only after much hand-wringing and cost-cutting including the elimination of all floats.

Al Taubenberger, president of the Steuben Day Observance Association of Philadelphia and Vicinity, said he haggled the city down from an initial charge of $15,000 to about $4,000.

Taubenberger said the economy made it difficult to raise funds, and the city's policy compounded the situation to the point where a number of voices in the organization wanted to scrap the parade.

"I felt very strongly to push it," Taubenberger said.