Are they trying to barf up the Gumbo?

The Town of Southington is doing a nice job of diffusing this year's post-Apple Harvest festival euphoria by refusing to renew director John Ryan's contract for next year's festival. Apparently, some town officials' asses were not sufficiently kissed to the point that they voted to put the contract out to bid based on Ryan's stated desire to also take over the sponsor function of the festival, a natural progression after two years. That is the thanks Ryan gets for taking a tired, aging event and making it interesting, local-oriented, fun and profitable (his original mandate was to break even) by using an organized, efficient, if not always motherly, management style. The results speak for themselves, but a few selfish Town officials would rather put their pouting above the constituents. Nice. Well, as Joni Mitchell once warned us, "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone." Shame on the City of Progress (or whatever we call ourselves these days)! - various news articles