Mayor pulls back on $3M holiday lights proposal

Mayor Drew Dilkens has pared down his vision of a $3-million holiday festival of lights in the face of harsh criticism by residents reeling from last week’s worst-ever flooding.

“I’ve taken the feedback, I’ve listened to folks, we’re happy to do that,” the mayor said Tuesday night, announcing that the holiday light display in Jackson Park will be phased in, with a more subdued display costing no more than $1.5 million in its first year.

“I’m happy to phase the program in, do something that’s not going to be spectacular this year, but something that’s really nice, and we’ll build on that for future years.”

Dilkens admitted the timing on the light festival “appeared horrible.” It was narrowly approved by council last week, one day before the severe rainfall on Aug. 29 led to the worst flooding in the city’s history. As of 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, the city had received reports of 5,302 homes with basement flooding.

An online petition opposing the holiday lights had garnered more than 6,000 signatures by Tuesday night.

Dilkens said some critics were implying that spending $3 million on Christmas lights starved the city of money for sewer projects.

“It’s complete nonsense, but I understand it has penetrated some folks who now believe that,” he told reporters.

“I don’t want this festival to be tainted — it’s supposed to be a festival for the community.”

While he didn’t know yet how scaled back this year’s display might be, Dilkens wants to keep the budget under $1.5 million.