The future of Hodgepodge is again up in the air after a discussion at the Jan. 28 Signal Mountain Town Council work session.
Though the town took control of the annual festival last year after the Chattanooga Market could no longer manage it, the council unanimously voted during the recent work session that the town not manage Hodgepodge again this year.
Before the vote, council members looked over the official financials of the 2013 festival, the realized revenue of which was $2,694.36. That sum doesn’t account for the labor of town employees – MACC workers, police officers and more – who prepared for and worked during the event, noted interim Town Manager Boyd Veal.
Even without those expenses, last year’s revenue was down from the 2012 festival, which brought the town $5,633.16 under the management of the Chattanooga Market.
“I look at these numbers and I don’t see any incentive for the town to manage Hodgepodge,” said Councilman Dick Gee.
After the resultant vote, Gee turned to MACC board chair Sandy McCrae and said, “It lands in the [MACC] board’s lap.”
“If we’re going to keep Hodgepodge, we need to move at all due speed,” said McCrae. “That it happened at all [in 2013] was a miracle because it came together so late.”
The Chattanooga Market was set to manage the 2013 festival like it had in 2012 but backed out in late summer, leaving the festival completely in the town’s hands.
MACC Director Barb Storm said there’s a possibility Hodgepodge won’t take place in 2014, but she also said, “We will do everything we can to find the right organization to run Hodgepodge for the town.”