Wentzville aldermen are looking for financial help and other support for special events such as the annual Wabash Days festival.

The Board of Aldermen began discussion of the future of city support for special events during its Feb. 6 work session after reviewing a report from Parks and Recreation Director Mary Jo Dessieux outlining the city’s costs for nine special events.

The largest of those events is the three-day Wabash Days street festival staged each year in August. The festival now draws about 12,000 people but has cost the city $95,090 since it was launched nine years ago as a way to draw people to the downtown area and highlight 155 years of the city’s railroad heritage. Officials, however, said the city did not keep track of personnel costs for the first five years. Last year, the event lost $18,407.

The city provides financial support in addition to planning, police protection, closing off streets and setting up the festival.

Dessieux said only the city’s Holiday Night Light festival turned a profit — $975.60 — last year. Other events include the Easter Eggstravaganza, Movies in the Park, Sunset Concert, the Independence Day celebration and the Soap Box Derby. The Independence Day celebration on July 4 had the largest loss at $31,969.

Other events involving city staff but not listed in the report include the Battle of Wentzville, school district parades, the Downtown Business Association Christmas parade and fitness runs.

Aldermen conceded special events won’t always make a profit and are not meant to make money, but said the costs of events like Wabash Days may continue to rise.

“We need to look at ways to back government out,” said Alderman Chris Gard, Ward 2. He said the city should find a “balance” between events the city should sponsor and others where it could seek financial support from private companies.

Alderman Forrest Gossett, Ward 1, said it made sense to explore sponsorship opportunities as long as the city doesn’t violate its ethics policy.

Gossett said the city should have helped set up a nonprofit organization to manage Wabash Days at the time the festival was started, but he questioned whether the city now could turn over the event to another organization. He said he is not ready to throw in the towel on Wabash Days. “We have to have a discussion about what kind of public investment there should be,” Gossett said.

Interim City Administrator George Kolb said a nonprofit organization might be able to raise money for festivals and avoid conflict of interest questions.

Alderwoman Cheryl Kross, Ward 1, suggested the city seek help from local service clubs to ease city expenses and asked if the Wentzville Rotary Club, Community Club and other community organizations couldn’t take a more prominent role in staffing and running Wabash Days.

“It’s not really part of their charter,” said Gossett, who added it might be “disastrous” for clubs that don’t have enough people and the  expertise to handle large-scale events.

“I can’t get people to volunteer for bingo on Saturday night,” said Diane Ransom, president of the Wentzville Community Club. Service clubs are willing to volunteer but don’t have the expertise of city staff, she said.

Ransom said Wabash Days and other events bring people downtown. If streets are empty, “what you have is a dead city,” she said. “This is what brings life to this city, this event and others like it.”

Larry Marshall, president of the Wentzville Historical Society, said local groups could not manage or handle the logistics of a major festival as well as the city and don’t have the financial ability to absorb losses.

Meanwhile, the board gave some leeway to organizers of the annual St. Louis Rennassance Faire to continue to allow merchants and some entertainers to park camping recreational vehicles in Rotary Park. But faire organizers will be required to provide more security and make sure no more raw sewage is dumped by a recreational vehicle, as happened last year. City police had suggested more security, and organizers agreed.

Bob Stanza, president of the Renaissance St. Louis, the nonprofit organization that runs the faire each spring, told aldermen more stringent rules will apply to vehicle septic systems.