KC PrideFest cancels 2020 event over COVID concern and turmoil within sponsoring group

The Kansas City Diversity Coalition canceled its 2020 PrideFest during a contentious meeting last week that included the removal of the organization’s president.

PrideFest, a three-day event that is normally held in June, had previously been pushed back to October because of the coronavirus and rules regarding large gatherings during the pandemic.

Community members and former Diversity Coalition board members condemned the board during a two-hour meeting for what they described as an insular organization that was secretive about its finances and not inclusive of the community it served.

In a Facebook video of the meeting, community members called out the 2020 event organizers for trying to hold it during the pandemic, when local activists said they had not wanted it. Past board members have also expressed concerns about the organization’s finances, which they say were kept private from other board members.

The past board members, who said they were listed as current members on official documents filed months after their resignations and therefore could still vote, passed a variety of motions that they said should increase transparency at the organization and make it more inclusive.

Diversity Coalition president Donnyel Gregory received a large amount of the backlash from a handful of community members and former board members, who called on him to resign. Gregory walked out about halfway through the meeting. After that point, the board voted to remove Gregory as president of the organization.

Community members at the meeting and past board members said Gregory and Bill Svoboda, who helps plan the event through EventPros, haven’t been inclusive of the entire LGBTQ+ community. EventPros is currently contracted to plan the event until 2022.

Gregory and Svoboda could not be reached for comment after repeated attempts.

Interim president Wes Warner and board member Bradley Cain said they and other members resigned from the board in 2019 after conflicts with Gregory and a previous attempt to remove him as president was ignored. They and other past board members returned to the Thursday meeting after learning their names were falsely listed as current members on paperwork filed in June 2020 by the organization.

Warner and Cain said they hope to step down from their interim positions once they hold the organization accountable for what they say has been a lack of transparency both in terms of finances and communication. Warner and Cain said they often felt that Gregory and Svoboda ran the event and organization, while the other board members were figureheads left out of the loop on major decisions and information.

They want to hold monthly public meetings so that community members know what the organization is doing and plan to hold public elections for new board members as soon as possible.

Warner and Cain said they hope that from now on, PrideFest can be planned by a mix of nonprofit and business owners and LGBTQ+ leaders within the community, by separating the Diversity Coalition from PrideFest.

“I would like to see the impact be a groundswell of support from the community to actually turn it into something they’ve always asked for,” Warner said. “Where they feel they’re represented, where they feel the entertainers look like them, where they see programming from the stage all the way down to the vendors that are at the festival that represent them.”