Trail of Lights may go dark this year

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The lights could go dark again this year at the popular holiday Trail Of Lights in Zilker Park.

Mayor Lee Leffingwell and at least two City Council members said they would rather use the money reserved for Trail of Lights for the city park maintenance.

The Trail of Lights, which has been scaled back from $800,000 to $375,000 last year, began as Yule Fest back in 1965 with the Twelve Days of Christmas display and rapidly expanded. Attendance back in 2007, before the event was downsized, was 400,000 people over two weeks.

"Our parks maintenance has gotten way too bad over the past few budget cycles bad this is something people use everyday of the year, whereas the Trail of Lights is about a week or 10 days worth of entertainment so I will support it."

The possibility of getting a private company to run the Trail of Lights has been tossed around.

But, it is not likely that the City could get a plan together in time for this year.