Musicfest 2008 washed out
By Tina Renna | September 6, 2008
You read that here folks. According to the county’s website which states it has “breaking news” as of this posting it will tell you in big red letters MUSICFEST TO BE HELD RAIN OR SHINE THIS WEEKEND AT NOMAHEGAN PARK IN CRANFORD
If you go to the official Musicfest website listed below the county press release, and if you read the Alliance Newsletter which every postal patron in the county received in the mail and the 4 color postcard mailer they sent out this week they all state:
RAIN LOCATION: KEAN UNIVERSITY, UNION
So at 6:30 pm after I checked the county website which said “rain or shine” and the official Musicfest website which said “rain location Kean University”, I headed over to Nomehegan Park to check it out. The entrance was blocked off and I was told “they’re gone” I asked are they at Kean and was told again “they’re gone”. So, not knowing if the concert was “canceled” from this official information, I proceeded on to Kean to see how the county was going to fit 50,000 people into a 900 seat theater.
On Morris Avenue leading up to Kean and on entering the campus I was expecting to see some signs directing me where to go, but none were in site. I came upon a 3 car security detail in the parking lot. I asked where the concert was and was asked in return “what concert?” I said “the Musicfest”. To which Kean Security responded “Nobody told us anything about any concert, where did you hear that?” I replied “on the Union County website”. “Well we don’t know anything about it, sorry.”
Who was in charge of the planning of this event that was expected to draw approximately 50,000 people when days ago flood conditions were predicted to hit flood prone Cranford, NJ? They obviously didn’t care a whit about public safety. And you can be sure it isn’t anyone that will be held accountable, meaning it was a politician’s relative and/or cronies. This year a new division was created to run the music fest “Parks and Community Renewal”. We also have a million-dollar public information department.
Either we aren’t dedicating enough human resources to run county government, or we are hiring total incompetents because they work the freeholder’s campaigns, or perhaps no matter how much tax dollars the freeholders spend on personnel they won’t get it right because county government isn’t supposed to be in the entertainment business. But then again, they can’t run the prison well either.
Why would the county publicize a rain location, when they obviously never had one planned? Kean Security would have been alerted days ago, when the national weather service started issuing their Tropical Storm Hanna warnings for Union County, that they would have to be prepared to work overtime to handle the huge event. The county was planning on fitting 50,000 into a 900 seat theater; you don’t have to be a professional pubic safety official to see that posed a major security issue.
Was the illusion of a rain location necessary to meet the event insurance needs? I’ll keep an eye out for the lawsuit.