That is ridiculous. Considering the number of people that attend the scramble every year (1200), the benefit to local business and the cities reputation, its amazing that they can't come up with twenty five grand.
It seems like they could aim for a combination of increasing scramble fees (maybe voluntary contribution), city contribution and local merchants to hit that amount. Looks like the minimal amount of time to raise that money is going to cause issues though.
I do the scramble every year, it will be a shame to see the xterra (and the excitement associated with it) diminish the fun of the scramble and have a great event disappear from Richmond.