The dancing has ended in Chula Vista.
The annual South Bayfront Powwow, which was scheduled for this weekend at Chula Vista’s Bayside Park, has been cancelled for the second consecutive year after a lack of funding and no organizer.
“There isn’t going to be a powwow,” said Susan Johnson, former South Bayfront Powwow organizer.
Johnson said she decided to take a step back this year from being the lead organizer, but offered to help with securing a Port of San Diego grant and assist in providing portable toilets for the two-day event.
She said she had left the organization to various Native American communities including its main sponsors the Sycuan Band of The Kumeyaay Nation.
Johnson said the Sycuan Band of The Kumeyaay Nation never came up with the $15,000 needed to fund the event and that they didn’t really care to organize the powwow.
The Sycuan Band of The Kumeyaay Nation said they have their own events to worry about.
“We don’t handle the Chula Vista powwow,” said Alexis Vargas, enrollment clerk with the Sycuan Band of The Kumeyaay Nation. “We’re focused on our own powwow in September and our traditional gathering next June.”
Johnson said she knew in early June that the two-day event would not move forward this year.
Chula Vista’s Cultural Arts Manager Lynnette Tessitore said she was disappointed to hear that the powwow was cancelled.
“It’s such a great opportunity for Chula Vista to represent an aspect of our community that’s not really showcased,” she said.
Tessitore added that the event gave more exposure to Chula Vista as tribes from all over the Southwest would come to the city to participate in the powwow.
Johnson said despite clearly stating that she was not going to be involved in planning the event, she said everyone still assumed she was going to put it all together.
“In the past I did all the heavy-lifting,” she said. ““If anybody is to blame (for the cancellation), I’m the one to blame.
I’m the one who organized it for the past few years. In 2016 the traditional dance and ceremony gathering was first cancelled after organizers fell $2,000 short of their operational budget and could not come up with the required number of vendors to offset costs.”
Johnson said she removed her full involvement with the powwow this year because she wanted to dedicate more time running her nonprofit, the South Bay Sailing Association, which provides on and off the water educational programs linking education, science and art in an innovative maritime learning platform.
She said the South Bayfront Artists also no longer backed the event.
Johnson said if there are future plans to revive the annual event, she said she wants no part of it.
“This is pretty much it,” she said. “I’m not doing it again.”
Johnson did say the powwow was a “wonderful event” and that she will miss it in Chula Vista.
“We were on the national powwow circuit,” she said.
Tessitore said she does not know the financial impact the event brought to the city.
