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Memorial Day Parade In East Hartford Canceled

Hartford Courant - 3/29/2017

March 29--The Memorial Day Parade, a decades-old tradition, has been canceled due to costs, lack of volunteers and dwindling attendance, town officials said Tuesday.

Patriotic Commission member and event coordinator Vincent Parys sent a letter to parade participants thanking them for their support.

"But with deep regret and reluctance," the letter says, "I must advise you that due to the current economic situation, the East Hartford Memorial Day parade has been canceled."

"I think it's a damn shame," Paul Barry, former Patriotic Commission member and past president of the local chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, told the Courant Tuesday.

Memorial Day is on May 29. The commission is trying to organize a ceremony at East Hartford High School or the Veterans Memorial Clubhouse, on Sunset Ridge Drive, Parys said.

Mayor Marcia Leclerc said the decision to cancel was the commission's. Leclerc said she had not been officially notified of the cancellation, but had heard that the panel's decision was based on "economic reasons."

"I can share that commission members have previously communicated with my office about the lack of volunteer labor," Leclerc said, "and they have struggled in recent years to undertake the significant effort necessary to organize and host this event with the challenges of weather related cancellations, a significant decline in parade attendance and the lack of public participation."

Parys, a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War, said town officials gave commission members widely different cost estimates for the parade _ ranging from $26,000 from the town finance department to Leclerc's estimate of $75,000.

Commission member John Cook said Parys presented those same two cost estimates at a commission meeting earlier this year. Cook said the panel could not get a straight answer on the actual cost of the event.

The 70-year-old town native said he has been attending the local parade since he was a young child. He said he has heard the reasons for the cancellation, but called them "excuses." East Hartford men who died in the nation's wars deserve a parade, Cook said, and a static ceremony is a weak substitute.

Leclerc did not respond to a request for comment on Parys's statement and the $75,000 cost estimate. Patriotic Commission Chairwoman Melodie Wilson could not be reached.

Parade costs include overtime for police officers and public works employees, which the town pays for, town council Chairman Richard Kehoe said. Barry said the commission has paid some expenses, such as a fife and drum corps, to march at an annual cost of $7,000 to $7,500.

The holiday's history dates to 1868, when the head of the Union veterans' organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, established Decoration Day as a time to adorn the graves of the war dead with flowers, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The date in late May likely was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

Ed Dettore, past commander of the East Hartford Veterans of Foreign Wars post, said, "I can appreciate the fact that crowd sizes have been diminishing, but the parade goes beyond the people on the sidelines; the people participating enjoy it as well."

Dettore said he also understood the financial pressures and suggested that in the future, East Hartford might combine efforts with neighboring towns to hold a regional event.

Kehoe said he spoke with commission leaders about organizing a meaningful ceremony in place of the parade.

"The point is we still want to have a Memorial Day event," he said. "It's just a matter of how can you make an appropriate ceremony that will recognize the sacrifices of those who died in the line of duty."

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(c)2017 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)

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