WELCOME TO PRESCOTT, CALIFORNIAWEST COAST YUPPIES ARE MAKING EVERYBODY'S HOMETOWN TOO EXPENSIVE FOR ITS OWN RESIDENT

"Money can blind," he says. "All they ask is: 'How big can the bottom line be?' Not, 'Did we do it right?'"
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@body:Prescott's aggressive scramble to import new money has gone this far: Christmas is being affected.

As it has for 41 years, Prescott's Christmas lighting ceremony, held on the first weekend of December, marked the high point of the town's winter season. The ceremony has always been a family event, similar to thousands of other Christmas lighting pageants held in small towns across the country.

Last year was different. Unsatisfied with the amount of business generated by local residents attending the ceremony, the Chamber of Commerce launched an aggressive advertising campaign that brought thousands of tourists into town for the affair.

The Chamber was delighted. Hotel rooms were full. Restaurants packed. And the Whiskey Row bars were braced for a lively evening, pouring hot toddies for the excited crowd gathered for the ceremony.

But there was a trade-off.
Heavy promotion of the Prescott Christmas lighting spurred a Phoenix television news station to cover the ceremony. It was another coup for the Chamber. Could there be a better advertisement for Prescott's pricey real estate than a live news broadcast into Phoenix homes depicting Rockwellian images of small-town America gathering around its anchor of civility?

Everyone gathered for the big moment; thousands of Christmas lights would illuminate the north steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse.

The courthouse lighting system, which earlier had bathed the smiling white faces of singing children, grew dim. Everyone was waiting for full darkness, and the dramatic impact of a sudden display of Christmas lights.

But darkness never arrived.
The television crew's floodlights continued to beam down on the courthouse. This was a live feed, and the innocence of a small town celebrating for the sake of celebration was gone. Prescott's downtown square--famous for events that range from drunken fights on July Fourth to Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign declaration--had become nothing more than another cheap sales prop.

The Christmas lights were turned on, and the crowd's muffled reaction told the story.

"This year, there wasn't so much oohing and aahing," says state Representative Sue Lynch, a former Prescott town councilmember. "The cameras were on, and there were all these bright lights.

"It just wasn't the same.