The city turned itself inside out to accommodate the arrival of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But keeping the Owasco Stage Race alive seems a tall order.

Organizers of the event have cancelled a portion of the race that usually takes place in downtown Auburn. Race officials claim the city was willing to comply with the designated route back in February, but have since changed their mind.

The city manager has said the city is much in favor of the bike race.

But the new route would require the city to close North and South streets; an impossibility.

What I don’t understand is why both sides can’t get together and compromise? The Founders Day event proved to be such a wonderful thing for the city.

The feedback from the community was that we should have more events downtown.

Why sabotage an event that has tremendous potential for growth? Especially considering that competitive bicycle racing has gained a lot of popularity since the event first began in 2004.

If the city was really interested in compromise, the event wouldn’t have been cancelled. The city would still be working with event organizers to come up with a solution.

After all, Auburn is a big city. I agree; closing off North and South streets would be a tremendous inconvenience, but there are plenty of roads and streets that could accommodate 250 riders.

Set in an urban street environment, riders make the same loop many times. The location seems relatively unimportant. Does it have to be North and South streets, specifically?

It seems to me like no one even posed the question. It was as if the event planners picked the route, the city said no and the event planners backed off. The end.

If you ask me, it seems like this event hasn’t been properly fostered, on either side.

Not only is this bad for the event coordinators, but it certainly makes our city look pretty cruddy to all of the riders who registered to participate.

Consider the travel costs, the hotel fees — all booked and paid for an event that was cancelled. And many of the participants are avid riders.

Word gets out within the competitive bicycle community that we can’t get our ducks in a row and just like that we’ve lost our credibility.

This may not seem like a big deal to some, but there is a lot of money to be made in competitive racing, if anyone would bother to take the time to plan a quality event. It could be a wonderful thing for the city.

Estabrook’s column appears Mondays and she can be reached at estabrookcarole@yahoo.com