Same old SummerFest do-wop has to stop Council plans to go out to bid for event organizer BY DANIELLE MEDINA Correspondent BRICK TOWNSHIP - The acts at SummerFest may very well be playing a different tune this year if Township Council members have anything to say about it. "I've gotten enough e-mails that say, 'Enough with the '50s,'" council President Stephen C. Acropolis said at a council caucus meeting last week. "Upgrading is what we have to do." Acropolis proposed featuring different theme nights- local bands, jazz under the stars, a '70s night and a children's night - for the 13-year-old summer concert series held annually at Windward Beach. Democratic Councilwoman Kathy Russell suggested a survey be posted online on the township's Web site so that the public has a say in the acts it wants to see at SummerFest. The council is also expected to request bids for a festival events coordinator and food vendors, for which there are eight slots. The entertainment booking agency LaGuardia & Associates, Verona, has managed SummerFest for the last 10 years. The company was responsible for booking the talent and the event's sound, lighting and stage set-up and take down. Last year, LaGuardia and Associates was paid $68,500 to produce five nights, Business Administrator Scott M. Pezarras said. By putting out requests for bids for the event coordinator shows Township Council's new direction - requesting bids for services instead of installing the same vendors year after year, Acropolis said. "This isn't business as usual," he said. Pezarras said after the meeting that bids for SummerFest were never requested because state law didn't require it. "The pay-to-play law changed everything," Pezarras said. "Under the old law, the fact that it wasn't bid was not construed as a problem." Pezarras said that the township's previous attorney interpreted that law as saying that services that were artistic in nature didn't require a bid process. However, the township's new attorney says that because there are talent brokers involved, a bid process should be utilized. "Different attorneys have their own interpretation of the law," Pezarras said. In January, the council replaced the longtime Democratic law firm of Starkey, Kelly, Bauer and Kenneally with the Toms River-based firm of Gilmore and Monahan. George Gilmore is the longtime chairman of the Ocean County Republic Party. There has also been a space at SummerFest for a nonprofit organization to set up a table. However, reserving a space for specific groups is not permissible, according to Township Attorney Jean Cipriani. Instead, Cipriani said, the council should develop a list of criteria that all nonprofits have to meet and then the council should decide which organizations would benefit. "In other words, there should be a level playing field for all nonprofits," Russell said. SummerFest has been a topic of contention between former Democratic Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli and the Republican-majority council since 2004, when the council reduced the number of SummerFest concerts from nine to five. Scarpelli's administration always stated SummerFest pays for itself through corporate sponsorships. Council members said the concert series was rife with hidden costs, such as overtime for police and bus drivers, and gas money to fuel the free shuttle buses.