FARGO - The organizers of Fargo-Moorhead’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade say this year’s parade won’t go on due to funding and manpower issues and safety and security concerns, though Mayor Tim Mahoney and the Downtown Community Partnership hope the decision can be reversed.

The volunteer organizing committee made the announcement in a Facebook post.

The group says donations haven’t kept up with the growing crowds at the parades, putting people at risk.

“Over the past few years, expenses have been increasing due to normal inflation but as the crowds increased the need for additional expenses to keep everyone safe and secure has exploded. As the committee relies solely on donations to cover operation costs of the parade, the committee simply cannot continue financially with the budget that is needed to host the parade of this magnitude,” the Facebook post said.

The committee identified two main areas of concern.

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“The first concern is the lack of financial support to purchase insurance and proper barricades to ensure the safety and security of the ever increasing crowds that attend the parade each year. In the past the committee has used caution tape to keep crowds behind the parade lines, but the committee has been receiving complaints from families that this style of barrier is not safe and could result in harm to spectators.

“An attempt to replace the tape with bike rack-style barricades was identified as a safer and more secure barrier. This barrier, however, is extremely costly and there just aren’t enough in the community to satisfy what is needed on the route.”

Buying or renting the barriers, as well as placing and removing them, are too costly, the group said.

“The second concern is the lack of human resources to provide staff for critical infrastructure in organizing, setting up the route, marshalling (the) route, and tearing down and cleaning of the route. The committee attempted to get additional volunteers to help marshal the parade lines to keep spectators behind the tape but cannot get enough volunteers to assist on parade day,” the group said.

Mahoney was shocked to hear of the news Friday, Jan. 25.

“Are you serious? Oh, that’s a huge disappointment. I’m going to have to go over and talk to those downtown people and see what’s happening," Mahoney said, calling it one of the city's "favorite parades."

Mahoney said he'd like to see some discussions about how to make this year's parade happen. He hopes that like the annual Fourth of July fireworks at Minnesota State University Moorhead, the St. Patrick's Day parade can be saved with help from businesses and community groups.

"It’s almost a rite of spring for a lot of people in Fargo. It’s something the kids love. It’s never predictable as far as the weather, but everyone seems to have a nice time. We’ll look into it and see what we could do," Mahoney said.

"Sometimes you have to tell people what’s going on before they’ll step in an help,” he said. “You have to give people a shot at this … to see if there’s something that they’d like to help out and make it happen.”

Melissa Radermacher, president and CEO of Fargo's Downtown Community Partnership, said Friday that she's communicating with the parade group and hopes that the DCP can help the parade organizers find the money and manpower they need.

“It’s money and manpower and then insurance. I mean, we could help them with, obviously, fundraising or finding sponsors and things like that. I think it’s just getting the community involved and aware. Like hey, if we want to make this parade happen, you know, maybe we can show some financial as well as volunteer support," Radermacher said. "It’s such a great event for downtown."

Don Martin, chairman of the St. Patrick's Day parade committee, said Friday that putting on a parade this year would need "a lot of commitment," in terms of funding and volunteers.

But community and fraternal groups, businesses, and local governments and public safety agencies must all be involved, he said.

"Unless we can get all the parties together, and together in a short amount of time, I don't know if we can do it or not," Martin said.

Safety and security "is our No. 1 priority," said Martin, the communications manager for F-M Ambulance. Existing resources can't guarantee that, he said.

"If we can do it or not. That conversation has to be started" soon, Martin said.

"The parade isn't an easy thing," Martin said. "But we always have hope."