The Centralia City Council Monday night rejected a request to move the Raccoon Lake Boat Races to the same weekend as Balloon Fest.
The organizer of the boat races Alan Owen asked for a chance to try the same weekend because of scheduling conflicts and the desire of some of the sponsors to try and tie the two events together.
A resident who lives on Raccoon Lake who admits boat racing weekend is her least favorite weekend of the year, Jeannell Charman, doesn’t see the two events working well together.
“That noise is going to carry over to the craft festival to the concerts in the park. It’s absolutely going to distort the events that are right next to it at Foundation Park.”
And Charman fears the balloons won’t come close to lake if all the items for the boat race are in the water.
Councilwoman Barri Allen was upset by an e-mail she received from the owner of the Best Western Rachel Wallace.
“She fills her hotel for Balloonfest and the Boat Races. Plus she owns 4 other businesses in our community that she has invested in. She is going to lose that too because people are going to go to other towns. We’ve already seen that.”
Allen was joined by Councilmen Jeff Castellari and Izzy Fontenez in voting against the boat races being held Balloon Fest weekend, while Mayor Bryan Kuder voted in favor.
Owen is confident he can find another weekend for the boat races.
“I’ll call the organizations and teams that support the race, and we are going to go over our schedules. I’ll get back with the city with another request after that. At this point, I would be looking at the next weekend probably, which is the weekend of August 23rd.”
Owen says part of the trouble this year was their old weekend just before Balloon Fest would be back-to-back with too many other competition weekends. He was told some of the teams would skip the Raccoon Lake event if it wasn’t moved.
In other action, the city council passed a resolution of support and commitment of local funds for a $1.5-million Illinois Community Development Block Grant to replace the city’s raw water line to Carlyle Lake. City Manager Kory Smith feels the grant would pay the largest share of work which he says will be completed separately from construction of the new water treatment plant.
