{"id":205905,"date":"2026-03-25T20:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T20:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205905\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T20:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T20:01:09","slug":"florida-puerto-rican-parade-in-peril-as-organizers-blast-orlando-over-costs-orlando-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205905\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Puerto Rican parade in peril as organizers blast Orlando over costs \u2013 Orlando Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida Puerto Rican Parade celebrates its 10th anniversary in April, but its leaders said the event may not happen in 2026 due to what they called an unfair hike in costs and fees by the city of Orlando.<\/p>\n

An anti-DEI bill set to be signed by the governor<\/a> may further hamper the parade.<\/p>\n

At a press conference on Tuesday, parade leaders and organizers asked for donations in order to pay the city $53,000 to host this year\u2019s parade along a roughly one-mile loop near Lake Eola.<\/p>\n

That number includes $28,000 for police, $7,000 for EMTs, $3,000 for parking meters, $7,000 for clean up, $7,000 for a traffic plan and $1,000 for other permits, they said.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Florida Puerto Rican Parade and Festival attendees celebrated Puerto Rican culture, heritage, values, and its contributions to the State of Florida on the downtown streets of Orlando, Fla., Saturday, April 26, 2025. (Willie J. Allen Jr.\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

Organizers added that they paid the city $20,000 for police services last year and just $12,000 in 2024.<\/p>\n

They also said the city has already cut its own monetary contribution to the event.\u00a0For many years the parade received roughly $20,000 from the city, Cacares said, but last year it decreased to just $5,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see this treatment, you can be led to think that they are going to raise prices until we leave,\u201d Pablo Caceres, director and treasurer for the Florida Puerto Rican parade, said in Spanish. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll tell you right now we are not leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlando spokesperson Ashley Papagni said the city is still calculating the total for the parade this year.<\/p>\n

However, it was unclear whether any particular changes \u2014 such as increases in hourly pay or increased numbers of police assigned along the route \u2014 played a role in a price hike for the Puerto Rican parade.<\/p>\n

The conflict between the parade organizers and the city also comes as legislation to ban local government from any diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives heads to Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 desk for his signature.<\/p>\n

The bill prohibits cities and counties<\/a> from spending money to promote or sponsor any actions related to \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion,\u201d which critics have said could impact events ranging from Pride festivals to St. Patrick\u2019s Day parades. It also stipulates that local officials who don\u2019t comply can be removed from office and local governments can face litigation.<\/p>\n

State Democrats vehemently opposed the legislation, saying it went too far and lacked clarity, but it passed both chambers along mostly partisan lines.<\/p>\n

If signed, the law would take effect Jan. 1. Papagni said anti-DEI legislation did not affect the size of the contribution from the city this year.<\/p>\n

Although parade leaders did not mention the legislation, the parade \u2014 set for April 25 this year \u2014 transforms the streets of Downtown Orlando yearly to \u201chighlight our Puerto Rican heritage with pride\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis event, the parade, is not just a parade where we go marching \u2018Viva Puerto Rico,’\u201d said parade president Ralph Morales. \u201cThe parade has a symbolic impact which is to bring attention to our community. We want people to know that we have the ability to contribute greatly to our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Morales said he and the rest of his board are very concerned they may not be able to raise enough money in time.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, we are on very shaky grounds,\u201d Morales said. \u201cUnfortunately, we are in a state and in a city where community services don\u2019t seem to be important factor for the leaderships that exist in our government structures. Maybe they\u2019ll shut us down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year nearly 35,000 participated in the parade and this year\u2019s turnout is expected to match that. Florida, home to over 1.3 million Puerto Ricans according to census data, has the largest concentration in the mainland U.S. outside the island territory. The Orlando metro area has nearly 400,000 Puerto Rican residents.<\/p>\n

Officials said donors and sponsorships to date are not enough to cover the shortfall, but they are counting on fellow Puerto Ricans and other Latin American groups to donate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy must we be subjected to this kind of treatment?\u201d Morales said. \u201cWe are Puerto Ricans. We are American citizens. We belong here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Puerto Rican Parade celebrates its 10th anniversary in April, but its leaders said the event may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,114,266,115,1335,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-205905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-orange-county","15":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}