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For the first time in recent memory, extra chairs had to be brought into Napavine’s city council chambers to accommodate the number of people attending a workshop ahead of a Tuesday night council meeting.
“This is the fullest I’ve ever seen this room and I appreciate you guys being here 100%,” Napavine Mayor Shawn O’Neill said at the start of Tuesday’s workshop.
While almost all city council agenda items have an impact on citizens’ lives, the subject of the Sept. 12 workshop has a particular place in the hearts of Napavine residents: the Napavine Funtime Festival.
The Napavine City Council passed a resolution Aug. 8 to “oversee” the Funtime Festival, which has been viewed as controversial by some members of the Cowlitz and Chehalis tribes and others over its Native American-ish “Princess Napawinah.” (Read more on that online at https://tinyurl.com/54xpkywe).
“If we’re here to argue about something like a pageant princess, other than what the city has been supporting the last several years, which has been … Miss Newaukum Valley, you’re at the wrong meeting. We’re not going to talk about Princess Napawinah tonight,” O’Neill said Tuesday. “If we’re here to talk about whether or not the city has the ability to interject itself into a pageant like this, you’re at the wrong meeting, because I would say, shamefully, that in the last several years, we should have been doing a little more of our due diligence anyway.”
The goal of the workshop, O’Neill said, was to go over a proposed outline for a new designated Napavine Funtime Festival Committee and to hear feedback from the public.
“We need to get back on track with making sure this is something that is a quality production for the community, and then also that it continues to live several years from now. So we’re not going to be going backwards in time and talking about things that don’t work, we’re going to be looking forward and talking about how we can make things work better,” O’Neill said.
The City of Napavine aims to set up the Napavine Funtime Festival Committee with three appointed positions: a president, a treasurer and a city council representative. From there, the committee would operate autonomously and have the power to add additional board positions as it sees fit.
“Eventually this would be an entity that would work on its own, just with the oversight that we should have already been doing years and years ago,” O’Neill said.
The city council representative, O’Neill noted, would serve a similar role on the board that the mayor does on a city council: refraining from voting except when a tie-breaker is needed.
O’Neill added that all Napavine residents, whether they live within the city limits or just outside them, are invited and encouraged to volunteer.
The festival’s current organizers were invited to Tuesday’s workshop and encouraged to stay involved under the new structure but have either declined or not responded, according to O’Neill.
Once established, the Napavine Funtime Festival Committee will report to the city council every three months for updates on insurance status, bond status and functions planned inside city limits.
The city council will require the committee to secure 501(c) nonprofit status, organize all of its own fundraisers, and secure insurance coverage.
The committee would start out responsible for three main events — the Napavine Funtime Festival, the Santa Parade and the Easter Egg Hunt — but is encouraged to organize other events such as car shows, concerts and parades, O’Neill said.
Most of the community members attending Tuesday’s workshop were just there to listen, but the handful who gave public comments offered ideas for how to better organize the Napavine Funtime Festival, the pageant, and other events in Napavine.
Several of the attendees who spoke commented on how the Napavine Funtime Festival was a highlight of their childhoods in Napavine, expressed disappointment for how far it has fallen in recent years and said they wanted to be a part of the festival’s revival.
“I think that all of us here are here out of concern and that all of us here would be willing to volunteer our time,” said attendee Joe Chirhart.
The Napavine City Council will accept informal letters of interest for the Napavine Funtime Festival Committee president and treasurer positions through Friday, Sept. 22. The city council scheduled a second workshop for 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 26 to go over those letters of interest, talk to the candidates and appoint those positions.
Letters of interest can be emailed to any Napavine City Council member or to Napavine City Clerk Rachelle Denham at rdenham@cityofnapavine.com.
