The city is banking on the return of the Mariposa Folk Festival after it was cancelled two years in a row.
Council committee agreed Monday to redirect funds that would have gone toward the 2021 festival to the 2022 celebration.
The city will transfer $20,000 to the J.B. Tudhope Memorial Park Improvement Project, which represents the Mariposa Folk Foundation’s contribution to that plan.
It will also transfer $30,000 from the 2021 operating budget, at year end, to city reserves, with another $10,000 set aside for the city’s previous commitment of one-time funding for the festival’s 60th-anniversary celebration.
All of that funding will be included in the 2022 operating budget to allow for a festival celebration that year.
“I think it’s really important that we support this. We’re going to need the Mariposa Folk Festival more than ever in 2022,” Coun. Ralph Cipolla said of the boost the annual event provides to the city.
Coun. Pat Hehn, who attended the first festival when it was held at Lions Oval, agreed.
“It would be wonderful to welcome those 30,000 people back to Orillia,” she said.
Coun. David Campbell reiterated that it is a redirection of funding, not an additional expense.
“It looks really complicated and it looks like money is being shuffled all over the place,” he said, but noted it was simply the city living up to its previous funding commitments.
The next Mariposa Folk Festival is scheduled to take place July 8 to 10, 2022.
