Bentlyville, should be ran by who?

So it begins, just one year after Bentleyville moves to Duluth the city is trying to take over the event. I said all along that Nathan Bentley, who runs the festival of lights should not move the operation to Duluth. My main reason is when the city sees something good, they try to take over and then it gets run down. Well that has not happened yet. It is starting just a year after the first season at Bayfront was completed. The city will consider a three year contract with Nathan Bentley to run Bentleyville at Bayfront at Monday's City Council meeting. In the contract are three new things, combined they indicates the start of the city taking over the event. It will be a work in progress by the City Of Duluth and City Council to take over the event. The three new items are: different start and end dates, new hours of operation, and a background check on persons portraying Santa Claus. If the three year contract is approved by the council, the festival of lights will run November 20th to December 26th, the times of operation will be 5pm - 9pm instead of 10pm. Let me first dive in to the date changes. I like the earlier start date, in fact I think it should open the same weekend as the Christmas City Of The North Parade. The event is being held in Duluth, creating a cool tie-in to the whole parade. The issue I have is the end date. Well, the festival with the new dates still runs as many weeks, but it takes some fun out of it. I've always enjoyed going to Bentleyville after Christmas. It was a neat way to start off the new year, by walking through the lights and taking time to remember the season, and to look ahead, it is a great place to ponder things. There are typically less people there once Christmas has passed, another reason to go then. You can really take time to enjoy the lights. There is no rush, no one pushing, just a nice atmosphere to spend time in. I think it is foolish to end it the day after Christmas, you are taking part of the joy and real moments families have away, by not operating it into the new year. The change of hours may not seem like a big thing to most, however to me it is just more evidence that the city wants to take this event away from Nathan Bentley. Note that the 9pm close is conveniently when most city parks close in Duluth. Gee residents, I don't think so. An hour also may not seem like a lot of time, however it is in this case. Any one who has ever gone to Bentleyville understands that there will be a lot of people there. They want to see Santa and having it close an hour earlier is going to allow for less people per night to accomplish this. I am not sure but I would guess that they will not allow new people in to see Santa after 8pm under the new contract. The gates to Santa this last season closed at 9pm. This was done because of large crowds. The last thing is a back ground check on Santa, while I agree in theory with this, I don't like it in this case. The same gentlemen has played Santa for the last 10 years and there has never been a problem. Councilor Fedora said it is not necessarily because of the current Santa but someone else may portray him at some point. That may be true, but I don't see it happening in three years. Tom Marciniak, who plays Santa has no problem with it. He said they will find nothing on his record. I think it is just another step of the city attempting to take the event away from Nathan Bentley.