LAKE WORTH BEACH, Fla. — According to city records, SunFest could take over Lake Worth Beach’s Street Painting Festival in 2025.
SunFest announced in November that they will be making a "significant shift" after losing more than $3 million in the past two years, according to tax filings.
City documents show Lake Worth Beach would pay SunFest of Palm Beach County, Inc., a nonprofit, about $270,000 to manage the Street Painting Festival, considered a premier event for downtown.
Diana Craven, SunFest's executive director, said they've been hired over the years to host multiple other events similar to the Lake Worth festival. She said the fee helps run their organization.
“There’s a lot of ideas on the table and multiple events like the [street painting] festival,” Craven said.
WHO WOULD MAKE A PROFIT?
Records show the city of Lake Worth Beach could extend the contract with Palm Beach County, Inc. for five years. It would also require the event to remain free while giving the city 30% of the revenue from drink sales and a payment of $22,000 for food.
The contract required the consultant to use 60% of the revenue on scholarships. not specifying which type. SunFest beat out Blue Pointe Partners LLC in Tequesta in a bid process to earn the contract.
WPTV reached out to Lake Worth Beach officials Monday evening to understand their rationale in choosing the nonprofit despite their financial losses and has not yet received comment.
Lake Worth Beach Commissioner Christopher McVoy said in a message he was disappointed and alarmed the city didn’t place the nonprofit financial information in the agenda for council members to review before Tuesday’s meeting.
"As a Commissioner how can I make informed decisions regarding public funds if our administrative process is allowed to be so weak?” McVoy said. “Why do I have to learn from WPTV that a potential vendor is $2 million in the hole?"
Other elected members didn’t respond to our request for comment.
LOCAL BUSINESSES HOPE FOR BOOSTED ATTENDANCE
Mike Ogonowski owns Relentless Bicycles in Lake Worth Beach and hopes the nonprofit can help boost the festival's attendance.
“I think they might bring more people here just because they have an audience already in their circles,” Ogonowski said. “As (SunFest) isn’t going to occur, people might be looking.”
Owner of The Fashion Exchange, Jamie Kilduff, said the event also builds commodity within the city. She said she’s hopeful SunFest could better deal with traffic at their “smaller” event.
“I would think this is a little smaller than maybe what they’re used to,” Kilduff said. “So maybe they’d be better organized and equipped to handle it."
WPTV is still waiting for Sunfest Event Director Daniel Goode's return for comment on whether an event as large as SunFest could happen again in the future.
