A downtown businesswoman is on a mission to get Lakeshore Festival & Events to keep the Wizard of Oz Festival in Chesterton.

Kelly Rivera, a co-owner of Top Hat Tuxedo, has petitions in assorted places in town and plans to have them available all weekend during the Oz Fest now underway.

She said she’s outraged not only that the LFE decided to move the fest without first getting input from businesses, but also that the fest is moving to the Expo Center beginning with its special 25th year anniversary next year.

“It deserves to be here. It’s our festival. It’s not Valparaiso’s,” she said.

As of mid-day Thursday, Rivera had collected about 250 signatures.

She said some businesses get six months of the revenue in just two days of their festival and that she knows of more than one business that will likely close without the Oz Fest in town. She said she wants to ask LFE to open its checkbook and reimburse local businesses for their lost revenue.

She also predicted that once at the Expo Center, the Oz Fest will charge an admission fee and no local vendors will be allowed. “It’s going to be all about the money,” she said.

Rivera doesn’t buy the argument that the fest needs to move because it got too big for Chesterton and can’t expand. She emphasized that children are the reason, or should be the reason, for the Oz Fest. “Look at the children. Ask them if it’s gotten too big,” she said. “It hasn’t.”

A person working at the LFE offices this morning said that LFE Executive Director Dee Spargur could not immediately comment since she was too busy with the festival now underway. The LFE worker also said that LFE’s focus right now is putting on this year’s festival, and that after this weekend’s fest concludes, LFE will then focus on the great opportunities that lie ahead for the Oz Fest in the future.

Posted 9/16/2005