MATT VOLZ
Sports Editor
As finals week approaches, many Fredonia students will soon spend a weekend celebrating off campus.
The weekend before dead week has come to be known as “FredFest,” which used to signify a school-sanctioned event filled with music, food and more.
In 2015, the school ended the event, but the weekend is still recognizable by students going off campus to party and unwind.
As it is no longer an event sponsored by the school, it has also been referred to as “Non FredFest” in some cases.
However, concerns have emerged about the safety of students participating, specifically in relation to violent events that have occured over the past two FredFest weekends.
A stabbing in 2023 and a shooting last year have put the community on high alert, including Fredonia Mayor Michael Ferguson.
Ferguson has stated that he would like to see the college and students work together on a potential solution that would involve bringing things back onto campus.
“We either come to a solution where we [work together] with the college and the students and the student body [to figure out] how we can put on two days worth of activities on and off the campus,” he said. “Or, unfortunately, I put an [8 p.m.] curfew on the village and bring in the National Guard … Hopefully we don’t ever have to get to that point.”
In an article published by The Leader on March 4, students were surveyed for their thoughts on FredFest.
They were asked questions such as whether or not they would attend a school-sanctioned FredFest event, what would make them most likely to attend, what they believe the biggest issue with FredFest is and how they feel about the school’s and mayor’s efforts to remedy the situation.
Specifically related to the last question, the majority of respondents said they were upset with how the school and mayor have attempted to handle the upcoming event.
64 out of 110 respondents said they were angry that ending the off-campus FredFest weekend was considered a priority over other issues, most notably the number of boil water orders the Fredonia village has had in recent years.
According to the Dunkirk Observer, the village had five boil water orders from February 2023 to February 2025.
Three of those occurred in a one-year span from February 2024 to February of this year.
At the time of this article, the most recent boil water order spanned from Monday, Feb. 3 to Friday, Feb. 7.
The associated notice from the Chautauqua County Department of Health read: “Effective immediately all Fredonia water customers … must boil all water used for cooking and drinking. There has been a disruption in the disinfection treatment, making the water not safe to drink. All water used for drinking or cooking must be boiled then cool before using. You will be notified when it is no longer necessary to boil water.”
Some students who responded to the surveys in the aforementioned article expressed frustration that ending FredFest was a higher priority than tackling the issue of the boil water orders.
One student responded, “Why are you so intent on fixing this when you can’t even make our water safe to drink? Where are your priorities?”
In an opinion article published by The Leader on Feb. 18, Managing Editor Dan Quagliana wrote that government inefficiency was the reason for the boil water orders.
He also expressed that, had he previously known about the issue, he may not have chosen to attend Fredonia.
“If someone had told me that this was a problem I would have to be facing just by living within the village boundaries, there’s a very real chance I might not have gone to college here,” he wrote. “And I sure as hell wouldn’t ever choose to live here because of it.”
On Monday, April 14, the Observer published an article recapping the two Leader articles.
In that night’s Fredonia Trustees Workshop and Meeting, Ferguson spoke about the articles after seeing them on the Observer’s front page.
“The article represents a ticky-tack he said/she said, with, as usual, no suggestions from students as to positive discord,” the mayor said. “When I say students, I’m talking about the students that wrote the article, not the many students that showed up at our last meeting with good, strong, positive leadership of their various organizations.”
Ferguson then made reference to Quagliana’s opinion article about government inefficiency.
“It’s easy to write a poison pen article weeks before your senior graduation, leaving our community in your wake,” he said.
The mayor also addressed Quagliana’s quote mentioned above, saying, “You don’t go to a college for the water, which we know you need. You go to a college for an education. I’m pretty sure you got a good one while you were here.”
He continued speaking about the article, saying, “I would have thought that a wise and educated young leader would have come to this community with suggestions on how to make things better,” he said. “I hope that they will reconsider in the future.”
On the subject of FredFest, Ferguson said, “The water issue is not the reason nor license to invite drug dealers and ne’er-do-wells into our community,” he said.
“So, as usual, read between the lines,” he said as he concluded his report. “The village water plan is focused and moving along, as we will have a strong bond between the village, college, our residents and our temporary residents, the students of Fredonia State University.”
In response to Ferguson’s report, the Observer published an article in their section The Observer’s View, titled “Is this the time to worry about Non Fred Fest?”
In the article, the unnamed writer questioned whether or not the thoughts of Fredonia students actually mattered in relation to the subject.
“But, in all honesty, do the thoughts of SUNY Fredonia students matter much given the village’s current budget situation? Sometimes you have to fight the fights that need fighting,” the article said. “An editorial in the SUNY Fredonia Leader isn’t a fight that needed to be fought. SUNY Fredonia students don’t need to occupy any of Ferguson’s thoughts.”
They continued with the same question, saying, “Who cares what some SUNY Fredonia students say? Do they pay taxes in the village? Do they own properties? Complaints by SUNY Fredonia students at this particular moment in time should be as noticeable in Fredonia’s Village Hall as the breeze a gnat’s wings generate in a hurricane.”
SOURCES:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfkK0jM-JQWU&t=2946s
https://www.observertoday.com/news/top-stories/2025/04/suny-students-wary-over-fred-fest-water