Photo by Jess J.

This is a bummer: Adams Morgan Day—the 36-year-old block party—isn’t happening this year.

On Facebook, organizers of the annual neighborhood celebration quietly announced the festival wasn’t happening this year, in a quick note that didn’t offer any explanation, just saying “It is with our deepest apologies that we must inform you all that there will not be an Adams Morgan Day festival in 2015. Please be patient as we organize a new festival of fun and celebration of this diverse neighborhood. The fun will continue in 2016!”

But WAMU, who first broke the news, reports that the reason for the festival’s cancellation lies in a web of mismanagement and debt. According to WAMU, the organization that sponsors the festival, Adams Morgan Main Street, has “tens of thousands of dollars worth of unpaid bills to the city.”

Other members of Adams Morgan Main Street are pointing fingers at its president, Marc Morgan, a former D.C. Council Candidate, who they say was shifting money around between the organization’s funds, his personal funds, and his campaign’s funds. But Morgan tells WAMU that he did that to save the festival.

“I took out a small line of credit for the festival back in ‘13 because we didn’t have any money, so that’s what they’re talking about when they say commingling of personal funds,” Morgan says. “In terms of campaign funds, that’s ridiculous.”

Of course, the other members of the board say otherwise, and tell WAMU that Morgan has been non-communicative and difficult about the Adams Morgan Day funds. In fact, Toro Mata co-owner Jim Nixon, who was asked to take over as Treasurer of Adams Morgan Main Street in 2014, wrote a letter with other board members to the U.S. Attorney’s office to investigate how Morgan handled the organization’s finances.

“Had I known when I signed up for this, I never would have gotten involved,” Morgan says of the possible investigation. “Looking back at the history of everyone who has served in the leadership of the organization, it has always been the same thing: they’re running it, they do good things for a couple of years and then as soon as they leave they’re accused of being a crook.”

We may not have Adams Morgan Day this year, but we’ll always have this song.