CAPITOLA, Calif.- Capitola could be the new host of one of the stages of the AMGEN Tour of California IN 2011. That's because the city of Santa Cruz had to give it up.
If you want to catch your favorite rider crossing a finish line during the AMGEN Tour of California 2011, you won't be able to do it in Santa Cruz.
"It's unfortunate. It's a great event, we love to see it happen, we just don't have the staff time to make it happen," said Mayor Mike Rotkin.
Rotkin admits the AMGEN tour is a great event to host international cyclists and the throng of fans they attract. In May, the city recovered the $200,000 it spent in fundraising and made $10,000 in profits, but Rotkin said it can't pull off the event again because of budget cuts.
"A lot of city employees in public works, the parks deptarment and others are being furloughed, they have a 10% cut; they've got more work to do than they can possibly complete," said Rotkin.
Too labor intensive for Santa Cruz, but could their beach community neighbor, Capitola, be taking over?
"Last week Capitola was informed by the local organizing committee that help set up the tour in the area, that Santa Cruz would not be hosting the race finish next year. We were approached by Tour of CA organizers about the interest in Capitola participating and being a race finisher," said city manager Jaime Goldstein.
And while Goldstein said it sounds enticing, Capitola must consider some of the same things Santa Cruz did before making a decision.
"The city isn't in a position to subsidize bringing the tour here in addition we have workload issues, vacancies that need to be filled, so we need to assess the impact on city services as well as the potential upside of revenue and exposure it could bring to the city in the future."
