Lack of Funds, Sponsorship Put End to Holiday Parade : Pageant: The group, which includes The Times, that stages the decade-old Christmas event in Santa Ana is dissolved. Poor economy is cited.

Citing a heavy financial burden and lack of sponsors, the board of directors that runs The Times Orange County Holiday Parade in Santa Ana has voted to dissolve the corporation that has staged the annual Christmas season pageant for the past decade.

“With the economy the way it is, companies are looking harder and harder at budgets, and parade-type funding is the first thing to go,” said Ruben Smith, the parade’s board president. “It’s been tough the last few years and we didn’t want to end up in a situation with creditors not being paid.”

For the past six years, the event has been known as The Times Orange County Holiday Parade. The Times and Kaiser Permanente were the main sponsors, but dozens of other companies, such as Chrysler Corp., Ralphs, and Great Western Reclamation, have participated in promoting the parade since 1988.

“We had lots of folks contributing, but those amounts were going down each year,” Smith said.

The parade, which attracted about 80,000 people last year, cost about $500,000 to operate each year. The Times provided $100,000 of those operating expenses, and Kaiser Permanente put up about $35,000. But other sponsors were hard to come by and the parade ran deficits the past few years, Smith said.

In ending the parade, Smith said, the board has paid off all its debts.

In 1992, parade organizers moved the event from downtown Santa Ana to the South Coast Plaza area in a bid to attract a larger crowd and sponsorship by merchants in the area. Last year, the board of directors altered the mission statement of the parade, making it a celebration of ethnic diversity throughout Southern California.

“It was a grand tradition,” Smith said. “Last year, we wanted to really unite the county, so we brought in various groups from all the different cultures.”

The city of Santa Ana originally ran the parade--called Toys on Parade--back in 1983, and continued to be a major contributor to the event.

“This is sad for all of us involved with the parade and all those who have enjoyed it over the years, especially the children,” Smith said. “But there comes a time when the financial burden is too great and shutting down is the only prudent thing to do.”