CORRECTION

City Councilor Richard Esterman requested retraction of a story that ran in the March 29 edition of The Nugget titled "Council denies permit fee waiver." The Nugget stands by the story with the following correction:

Esterman is an event promoter. As the story noted, he made a permit fee waiver request to the City Council in March, acting as a private citizen.

The story stated that "In the past, and again this year, Esterman has billed his events as fundraisers for nonprofit organizations, and therefore, under the organizations' nonprofit tax identification numbers, filing for the event permits as nonprofits, which cost less. (Esterman's business) Central Oregon Shows is a for-profit business."

The statement that Esterman has applied for permits as a nonprofit in the past is incorrect. While Esterman has consistently included charity fundraisers as part of his shows, this year was the first time that Esterman requested that the City waive an event permit fee and treat one of his shows as a charity benefit. The request involved his Sisters Wild West Show set for August 19-20. The request came after the City of Sisters raised its permit fee to $390. The council denied the request, citing concern over precedent.

According to City records, Esterman has applied for event permits listing Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Sisters School District as co-applicants. In both cases, the entity made clear to the City that they were not co-applicants for the events in question.

In a statement to The Nugget, Esterman said that "Central Oregon Shows has always applied for event permits as a for-profit enterprise, although a profit is rarely made. This is the first year Councilor Esterman applied using a charity's non-profit status because the funds generated during the event benefit that particular charity. The application was rejected, but Councilor Esterman simply reapplied and paid all fees due for a profit event."

The full text of Esterman's statement may be found on page 2 in the Letters to the Editor column.