Commissioner responds to Sorghum Fest cancellation

I am saddened by the decision of the Sorghum Festival organizers to cancel the Blairsville Sorghum Festival on what would have been its 56th year.

On Feb. 11, I met with one of the organizers of the festival, Lisa Kane, who has volunteered with the festival for many years. Apparently, her takeaway from the conversation was very different than mine.

I listened to her concerns about the lack of support from the previous administration, the lack of advertising commitments from the Downtown Development Authority and the Chamber of Commerce as well as her statements that the Historical Society would not assist with organizing the parade last year.

While I did not corroborate any of her assertions, I let Mrs. Kane know that she and the Sorghum Festival folks had my full support. I let her know on the spot that the Fire Department and the Road Department would still handle the parking of vehicles for the festival.

I also told her that our front desk receptionist could handle the calls related to the parade and organize that. I advised that the jail crews could be utilized to do whatever they needed to prepare the Sorghum Field for the festival.

All of these things I understand have been done in the past, and I did not see any reason to change that.

I at no point asked for any funds from the festival for these things, but we did discuss the cost of them. I did offer that, if they needed more assistance than this, I would like them to consider letting the county handle the vendors and the gate and be allowed to retain the proceeds from this portion of the festival.

The only reason this was offered was that this was the cost-split they had done with CASA (a nonprofit) a few years back. I even advised her that I would like those proceeds to be earmarked to go toward our goal of letting all kids who wanted to play recreation sports to play for free.

This offer was in no way an ultimatum or anything to force them to allow us to make money off the festival. It was an offer for their consideration in an effort to take some of the burden off of their volunteers since she expressed multiple times they only have about 12 people doing everything for the festival and they were all tired. It just seemed like a good way to help the festival folks and offer something to the kids of Union County that has never been an option before.

Mrs. Kane did express concern that they had let people handle the vendors and the gate in the past, and those organizations had tried to take over the festival or run it the way they wanted to.

We advised that, if it was agreed to by the festival folks for Union County to handle the vendors and the gate, then we could have the County Attorney draft up an agreement so the festival organizers could still retain control of the festival.

I am just saddened that it seems to me the entirety of our conversation was misunderstood, and no one has asked any clarifying questions. In hindsight, maybe I should have met with the entire group versus just one of the organizers to make sure everyone within the organization had the same information and understood that I supported the Sorghum Festival wholeheartedly.

If the festival folks would like to reconsider their decision to cancel the festival, my commitment to help by providing parking assistance and traffic control at no cost still stands.

My offer for the county to help with the vendors and the gate still stands as originally presented in our meeting, if they want that much assistance.

This festival, as I expressed to Mrs. Kane in our meeting, needs to continue, and the government organizations should offer whatever help is needed, and I did just that.