ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The city of St. Augustine is looking to cut spending for the Nights of Lights by around $300,000 after not receiving the amount of money it anticipated from St. Johns County.
Action News Jax told you at the start of the month that the city received $850,000 of the $1.2 million it requested from the county’s Tourist Development Council to help fund the Nights of Lights. The city usually only receives around $200,000 from the county every year for the event.
The city says it has been working on finding ways to make up the money it didn’t receive from the county, but, after all of the spending cuts it is considering, it is still at a $58,000 shortage of funds needed to meet its budget.
The city’s latest financial report on the Nights of Lights says it is cutting the $160,000 it planned to spend on buying more barricades to block cars from accessing crowded streets, as well as around $107,000 it would have needed to provide 116 porta-potties for visitors. Instead, it is looking to fund only 50 of them.
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“It’s overwhelming. It is. Absolutely,” said Cinda Russell, a bartender who has worked for multiple seasons of the Nights of Lights, “cutting the amount of porta potties in half is ridiculous.”
Russell tells Action News Jax she sometimes sees more people walking into the bar to look for the bathroom instead of a drink. She already felt like there weren’t enough public restrooms in downtown St. Augustine, so the thought of having even fewer portable restrooms is frustrating.
“I do not know how to point someone to a public restroom in town because it’s so minimal,” Russell said.
Action News Jax reached out to the city of St. Augustine to ask questions about the financial situation related to the Nights of Lights. The city said it wouldn’t be able to provide any interviews with us.
St. Augustine’s city commission is meeting Monday night at 5:00 PM, inside city hall, to possibly approve some of these spending cuts. You can read more about them by clicking here.
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