Organizers say filthy conditions of city streets suggest at
least as many people as last year returned for 2005 rally
Hollister – Hollister Independence Rally organizers believe about 120,000 people filled city streets over the event’s three days, but won’t have any idea whether the committee will end up in the black financially for at least two weeks.
Hollister Independence Rally Committee Executive Director Helen Nelson said that, based on law enforcement estimates and the extraordinary amount of garbage, that the crowds were at least as big as last year.
“We’ve had more garbage this year. The clean up has been interesting,” Nelson said. “Gourmet alley has 10 times more garbage than last year.”
Nelson said crew members set out four 20-yard garbage bins and two 40-yard garbage bins, which they emptied two or three times over the weekend. Last year there were only four or five 20-yard garbage bins, however Nelson didn’t know how many times they were emptied in 2004.
Clean-up crews have spent four nights picking up trash and attempting to wash the grease stains off the pavement along Sixth Street, where the food vendors set up shop.
And Nelson said committee members won’t begin work on the financial end of things until their obligation to return Hollister’s streets to the tidy condition they found them in is met.
HIRC members are still filing the Board of Equalization forms submitted by the event’s 210 vendors, which the state uses to trace receipts.
Nelson wouldn’t venture a premature guess whether HIRC will come out on the winning side of things for 2005.
“Private property owners have five days to get stuff in, and some people lag. We’re chasing everybody down still,” Nelson said. “Right now there’s a big push to get everything cleaned up.”
