BUCYRUS, OH (CRAWFORD COUNTY NOW)—The following is a press release from Adam Heinlen, President of the Board Bratwurst Festival Inc:

I want to give a big thank you to the Bucyrus and surrounding community for your support of this year’s Bratwurst Festival! After talking with several people during the festival, I just wanted to clarify a few things, so that the confusion surrounding the festival can stop and we can continue to bring the City of Bucyrus a great festival and showcase our amazing city to visitors from around the world. The Bratwurst Festival is going to continue on as it always has! What is changing is that the city council is choosing to no longer provide its cleanup services, of its own downtown streets, at no cost to us. The city has NEVER funded or supported the Bratwurst Festival financially. The services that the city provides are: trash pickup on Friday and Saturday mornings in which our volunteers are the ones throwing the trash in the truck, the city simply provides the driver and the truck for about 30-45 minutes a day. On Saturday night for cleanup, the city provides a small crew of people that would blow trash off the sidewalks and then use a street sweeper to clean the curbs and then load up empty trash cans onto a truck and they are done. Throughout the years, the festival had offered to pay the city, as we had done for many years, but we were told that it wouldn’t be necessary as we did a lot for Bucyrus and the city was glad to help.

When the council was asked if all events held in the downtown area would be required to pay something for cleanup and city services, I was told they would not be. Although this is extremely unfair, as other downtown events aren’t being held to the same standard as the festival, the council went to great lengths to explain why only the festival would have to pay for their services. Another thing I would like to point out, is that everyone that works on the festival is a VOLUNTEER! We spend hours and even weeks of our own time trying to make the festival a great experience for everyone in the community. Some members on council, to include the council president, made statements eluding that we were nothing more than thieves. The amount of slanderous and defaming comments that have been made by elected officials is absolutely appalling and simply ridiculous. We are a non-profit organization that is simply trying to help showcase our city and all of the other non-profit organizations as much as we can but were singled out because the city needed a quick fix to its enormous budget shortfalls. As stated, several times at council meetings, the city is going to have a huge budget shortfall by 2027. So, their plan is to try and fill this by charging the Bratwurst Festival, per the city auditors’ own findings, about $8,000!?… City council wasted over 5 months on this one issue and didn’t pass any worthwhile legislation to address this enormous shortfall they are facing. Five months and they are planning on making about $8,000.00. During these meetings when citizens would come to council to speak to their “elected” officials in support of the festival they were simply brushed off and, in some cases, blatantly harassed. Also, during the meetings at the beginning of the year, the Bratwurst Festival, was used as a bargaining chip to gain favor and support. It was put into context that it was either the Bratwurst Festival or the out-of-town worker tax credit, or the Bratwurst festival or the pool. One is a private, non-profit business and both of the others are city run functions. This is not even a comparison! The fact that the council can’t manage a budget is not the fault of the Bratwurst Festival.

What needs to be happening is that the city council needs to quit fighting like high school children and start worrying about saving this city. We have seen everything from outbursts in council meetings, council members being so argumentative and uncontrollable that they were escorted out of the meeting and lastly, name calling and bullying online. Now anyone who has watched the meetings has seen this and it is just a weekly thing for the citizens of Bucyrus. But do you know who else is watching? That’s right! Out of town businesses! What corporation in their right mind would watch one of these meetings and think this is a place where they want to start or expand their business?! There are bigger issues at play here and the city of Bucyrus depends on and needs this council to be the bigger people and do what you were elected to do and save this city! Is attacking non-profits and citizens what we need to be doing right now?!

This has all been simply an orchestrated distraction because we have a council president, who is blatantly using his position in order to further his personal gains and to simply attack anyone who attempts to question the validity of what he is doing. He proposed legislation that would intentionally slow down his competitors’ progress, was this possibly to gain an advantage in his own business? He has installed his internet service and cameras at city offices/property, without a vote from council, and simply made completely baseless statements about members of our organization. On that note, I would like to say that the recent departure of Kevin Myers as director of the Bratwurst Festival was a mutual decision between the board and Kevin, so that he could focus on his family and other personal ventures that took time away from his duties with the festival.

All I ask is that the community think about all of the non-profits that they support throughout the year and remember what the Bratwurst Festival was founded for! 57 years ago, the festival was started to bring the community together to showcase and support all of the non-profits in the county and to help them grow along with the agencies they supported. In the end, we will continue to bring the festival to you every year, for as long as we possibly can, in an effort to bring our community closer. We will also provide support to all of the other events that happen in the downtown area as we have done for numerous years, so that the citizens of Bucyrus can gather in the streets and enjoy this beautiful city throughout the year.

Sincerely,

Adam Heinlen

President of the Board Bratwurst Festival Inc.