Parades in Pensacola will roll on as usual for another year.


After that, private parade groups likely will have to share the city's costs of putting on the festivities.
The City Council agreed Monday that city government will continue to pay for police officers for crowd control and security as well as public works employees to set up and take down barricades.
"I think funding for parades is very important to this community, and we have already committed to funding for it next year," Mayor Mike Wiggins said.
The city only has $60,000 set aside for parades next year. This year, parades cost the city $84,853.
So the other $25,000 or so will have to be found somewhere in the budget, and City Manager Al Coby could not guarantee that other basic city services will not be affected.
"I hope every council member hears that because our priority is basic services," said Diane Mack, one of the council members who pushed for more financial contributions from parade organizers.
In June, the council considered transferring all of the city's costs to parade organizers. But after hearing from parade groups, the council agreed to form a committee to consider ways to share the costs of future parades but to continue funding them in the meantime.
There was some confusion among some council members and Coby over exactly what the council approved in June, and that's why the issue came back up for discussion.
The parade representatives who showed up at the meeting didn't have much to say since the issue worked itself out without their coercing.




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Other organizations have to pay for Police, why not them. Where is the City's priorities. If this is not evidence enough. The entire City has not given a single employee their annual step in the last couple years, but by god, let's pay for parades that less and less people are showing up to.