Revised Numbers on Autumnfest Fund-Raising Efforts
Thursday, September 27, 2012 • 11:00am
PATERSON, NJ - It turns out Paterson officials were much closer to meeting their financial goals for the aborted Autumnfest celebration than reported by PatersonPress.com on Wednesday.
The city's Urban Enterprise Zone director, Penni Forestieri, said her office had raised $63,275 in committments for private donations for what would have been a three-day event in October. Officials expected the event to cost about $91,000, she said.
Some of that $27,700 gap would have been covered by the city's percentage of ride revenue, according to Forestieri.
A previous story reported information provided by the mayor who said the city had raised just $45,000 and that the event's police budget alone would have been about $100,000.
But Forestieri said in a subsequent interview that representatives of the police department had lowered their estimate of the security costs for the event to $39,150. The other two big expense items would have been $18,000 for the fire department's coverage and $12,000 for the public works department, she said.
Mayor Jeffrey Jones said he expects to hold the Autumnfest next year, largely by starting the preparation far sooner.
