The city of Kent’s free summer outdoor movies won’t be back this year because of city budget cutbacks.
Kent started the movies in 2009 at Town Square Plaza. Three movies were shown on a big screen in August on Friday nights.
“Unfortunately, it’s a casualty of city budget cuts,” said Ronda Billerbeck, city cultural programs manager, in an email last week.
It cost the city about $6,000 to produce the series of three movies – $5,000 for production and $1,000 for licensing, Billerbeck said. Republic Services sponsored the movies for $2,500, so the city’s net loss was about $3,500.
“That’s not a big number, but we were required to piece together quite a few smaller cuts to make the budget,” Billerbeck said. “The decision was also based on the fact that we were only drawing an average of 100 people per movie, so they were not well attended.”
As many as 500 people attended each of the movies when the city started the Summer Nights and Silver Screen program four years ago.
“We would, of course, love to bring them back when budget allows and would most likely look at putting them in a different location,” Billerbeck said.
At Town Square Plaza, crews set up an inflatable screen that measured about 20 feet wide and 40 feet high. The screen was placed in the northwest corner of the park and faced toward the fountains. The city paid a company to provide the screen, projection equipment and sound system. Donations were taken the night of the movies to help fund the city’s summer programs.
The city Parks Department also had an arts program coordinator cut last year as part of Mayor Suzette Cooke’s elimination of 20 jobs that included eight filled positions and 12 vacant jobs.
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