From Staff Reports

In a cost-cutting move, Asheville City Council on March 12 informally endorsed a proposal to stop funding Bele Chere, the city’s biggest annual festival.

Under the plan, the city would allow responsibility for the downtown gala to be taken over by a community group after this summer’s Bele Chere.

Council’s decision came after a staff recommendation for the city to cease producing Bele Chere as a way to save uo to $450,000 a year.

Specifically, Lauren Bradley, the city’s director of finance and management services, recommended that the city end its participation to help narrow the shortfall between an expected $3.3 million increase in city expenditures and a projected $1.4 million rise in revenues in the next fiscal year, beginning July 1.

No councilman spoke out against the proposal to end funding for Bele Chere. The three-day weekend festival in late July draws thousands of people downtown for its music, food, crafts and other activities.

Councilman Marc Hunt noted that “Bele Chere was started back when downtown was otherwise stagnant,” but now “downtown is so vibrant every day there is a legitimate question whether Bele Chere drives downtown vibrancy.”

Also, council members discussed how Bele Chere inconveniences many merchants and others, outweighing the benefits.

Councilman Jan Davis said he has attended every Bele Chere, but “there are a lot of mechants downtown who would rather not have it.” The festival “may have outgrown itself,” he said. “Reorganization is probably due.”

While council considered the possibility of not funding this year’s Bele Chere, it agreed that there are many community groups who depend on Bele Chere to raise funds and, therefore, it is too late to terminate the gala this year.

The festival was launched in 1979 to draw people downtown when that area was largely boarded up and economically ailing.

Bele Cher is widely credited with helping with downtown’s revitalization, drawing throngs each year and morphing into what is among the largest annual outdoor festivals in the Southeast.

In recent years, council has scaled down the festival.