The largest city in America named after Christopher Columbus canceled Columbus Day this year — claiming it’s too broke to celebrate.
Local government officials in Columbus, Ohio, said they didn’t have the budget to allow city employees to take off on Monday. But organizers of the Columbus Italian Festival think they just wanted to be politically correct in the wake of last year’s national push to abolish the longstanding holiday.
“It’s very in vogue politically right now to do that,” said festival board member Joseph Contino, noting how cities across the country have started celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day in recent years.
“It’s not PC for me to say anything against indigenous peoples,” he told the Associated Press. “You can kick Christians, you can kick Catholics. That’s the message that it sends to us and that’s what it feels like; we’re Europeans and we lop Indians’ heads off. Which is just not true.”
Officials insist, though, that they simply didn’t have the cash to pay all 8,500 of their employees. The city only had a big enough budget to celebrate Columbus Day or Veterans Day this year, and since most of the workers are vets, officials said they chose to give them the day off in November.
“We have a number of veterans who work for the city, and there are so many here in Columbus,” explained Robin Davis, spokeswoman for Columbus’ Democratic mayor, Andrew Ginther. “We thought it was important to honor them with that day off.”
Contino believes the city was just trying to play it safe.
“If you’re mayor of a city and its name is Columbus, why wouldn’t you capitalize on that? Use it to unite everybody,” he said. “Use this day to celebrate the entire culture, celebrate Italians and indigenous both.”
Supporters of the Indigenous Peoples Day movement praised the city’s decision to cancel the holiday, regardless of what prompted it.
“The past is the past,” said Tyrone Smith, director of the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio. “It may not be pretty at times, but we cannot hold what happened back then against today’s society, regardless their bloodline. The fact that the city of Columbus is taking action is a victory for everyone.”
With Post wires
