The Dogwood Festival will need a new home, Christina Mora reports for NBC-29, since McIntire Park is being converted into something considerably less park-like. The event has been held in McIntire Park for sixty years (before that it was the Apple Harvest Festival, held in the fall beginning in 1950). The organizers are looking for a new home for their rides and fireworks, somewhere in Charlottesville or Albemarle.
I wonder if this means that our annual Fourth of July celebration can’t continue to be held in McIntire? If that’s the case, City Council may find itself with a full-blown rebellion on hand. It’s one thing to eliminate softball fields. It’s another to eliminate the only viable location in the city to celebrate the founding of our nation.
4:02 PM Update: Mayor Dave Norris says it ain’t so:
The media accounts on 29 and in the Hook are incorrect. The City is NOT planning to evict the Dogwood Carnival from McIntire Park. If anything, the changes afoot for the western side of the park will make McIntire an even better home for the Dogwood Festival. The only issue is what to do with the Festival NEXT YEAR if there is a major construction project going on in the park at that time.
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