WINDSOR -- Windsor city council is giving the thumbs up to keeping the lights on at the annual Bright Lights Festival.
Council on Monday unanimously approved a tender with Tucker Electrical to set up and tear down the annual festival at Jackson Park.
The cost is nearly $178,000 and work on the holiday spectacle will begin late this month.
Resident Brenda Weeks-Clarke questions whether it should be a city priority and if it is, why the city won't consider moving the festival downtown to the riverfront.
"That way, the sizable investment will pack a bigger bang for its many bucks," says Weeks-Clarke. "As an impressive showpiece, it would beckon our neighbours from across the river, telling the world that we are here."
The Bright Lights Festival has come under scrutiny as some residents feel the $3 million spent on capital -- $1.5 million in 2017 and $1.5 million in 2018 -- could have been better spent elsewhere.
But the city claims the event has been a hit.
More than 100,000 people visited the light festival at Jackson Park from Dec. 7, 2018 to Jan. 6, 2019.
