City Council members as sponsors for events for fee waivers

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Sheri Gallo
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 2:47 pm

City Council members as sponsors for events for fee waivers

Post by Sheri Gallo »

My office just received the following email from City staff:

The City occasionally co-sponsors large events taking place throughout the year such as SXSW, the Kite Festival, 4th of July, and the Austin Farmer’s Market. This sponsorship agreement is set by city ordinance and commits the City to covering all costs, fees, and waives related City expenses. It is the responsibility of my office to notify departments when an event is coming up, and get the necessary fee-waiver information and contact Council offices to inquire about their sponsorship of the event. The following is a list of the current City Co-Sponsored events:
1. MLK March and Parade
2. Celebrate Texas Parade/Run
3. SXSW
4. Kite Festival
5. Juneteenth Parade/Festival
6. 4th of July
7. Night of the Bat
8. Diez y Seis Event
9. Austin Pride Parade
10. Vida la Vida Fest
11. Viva! Streets Ciclovia
12. Veteran’s Day Parade
13. Austin Farmer’s Market
14. Merry Memories

In addition, the email stated the following: "Keep in mind that your sponsorship doesn’t commit your office to any expenses. It only means that your office agrees to keep this event as a City Co-Sponsored event for 2015."

My concern is that if I agree to sponsor an event, it would appear to imply that I agree with the event being a City Co-Sponsored event for 2015 and agree to the sponsorship agreement which is set by city ordinance and commits the City to covering all costs, fees, and waives related City expenses.

I think we are putting the cart before the horse here and would think it appropiate that before any of the Council members agree to sponsor an event we have a discussion which includes information provided by City staff regarding the costs to the citizens of Austin when the City covers "all costs, fees and related City expenses" for this list of events.

I would also like to know how and who choses these particular events to be on the "list".
Sheri Gallo, Council Member District 10
Ann Kitchen
Posts: 294
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2015 4:04 pm

Re: City Council members as sponsors for events for fee waiv

Post by Ann Kitchen »

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I'd be interested in hearing what you find out.

There are a number of issues that have been raised by citizens that I'm thinking this Council will want to review, including how we use our parks and how we handle fee waivers. These are policy questions that may be appropriate to address through our Council Committee structure once created.
Ann Kitchen
Council Member District 5
Leslie Pool
Posts: 231
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:22 pm

Re: City Council members as sponsors for events for fee waiv

Post by Leslie Pool »

I'm interested in hearing results of your questions, too, CM Gallo, so thanks for posting them here. Questions raised due to the recent bike race at Zilker Park have me thinking about our policies in this regard and should be answered as well, which I believe touches on your questions as to how specific events become sanctioned; what others may not have been; criteria for decisions; and how venues are selected.

Thank you!

Leslie
Leslie Pool
Mayor Pro Tem
Council Member, District 7
Ellen Troxclair
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 1:26 pm

Re: City Council members as sponsors for events for fee waiv

Post by Ellen Troxclair »

I would like more information about this as well. My office has also received several requests to waive fees for other events not on this list. My understanding is that each office can waive up to $6,000/year, so $66,000 total. It seems like waiving so many fees (and therefore shifting the total cost burden to those who do pay the fees) may be part of the reason fees are so high in the first place? It also puts our offices in the difficult position of trying to choose which of the many great events are "most worthy" of these benefits. Can staff please provide us with more information about the events that are officially "co-sponsored" by the City, that CM Gallo mentioned, as well as fee waiver issues for other events? In particular, I would be curious to know how many events had fees waived in recent years versus how many events paid the regular fees, a list of City venue fees, as well as how much fees have gone up over time. Maybe we can talk about this at our next work session?
Ellen Troxclair
Council Member District 8
Kathie Tovo
Posts: 128
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2014 11:18 am

Re: City Council members as sponsors for events for fee waiv

Post by Kathie Tovo »

Hi all. Thanks for raising this issue, CM Gallo. As CM Troxclair notes, we each can sponsor fee waivers up to $6,000 for small-scale events; in my office, we tend to reserve those waivers to help assist nonprofit community organizations with rental fees associated with facility or parks rentals. Although we're often asked to do so, we almost never use our fee waiver budget to waive fees for police costs, health inspection costs, or other services that have a real $ cost to the city. But in the past, it's been left up to the discretion of each Council Member how to use that waiver $.

The city-sponsored events are larger events with much higher fees and costs, and they are usually community-wide in focus rather than smaller-scale events. They've been designated as such through past Council resolutions. Some of the events have been sponsored by the City for years, I believe (like the Veterans Day Parade and MLK march), and others are newer. I agree that it's appropriate for us to re-evaluate this list and be intentional about this process.

One of the resolutions I sponsored in my first term asked staff to look at the costs/revenues associated with events as well as potential revenue sources for those costs, and we've received very good information from staff in the last several budget cycles about costs associated with city-sponsored events. I will try to pull together links to some of that material and post here, but a good place to start looking for info. on city-sponsored events would be in the Q/A section for FY2015, and the information about total costs/revenues associated with events was completed last spring, I believe.
Council District 9
Sabino Pio Renteria
Posts: 21
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 11:03 am

Re: City Council members as sponsors for events for fee waiv

Post by Sabino Pio Renteria »

I agreed that we need to review these events. I have a question about one of those event. Pio
Council Member District 3
Don Zimmerman
Posts: 168
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2015 11:05 am

Re: City Council members as sponsors for events for fee waiv

Post by Don Zimmerman »

The policy of waving fees for certain events, and not for others, by itself seems divisive and unfair.

Now if 100% of the city were to participate in the event, it would make sense to waive a fee we ALL have to pay for, but such an event doesn't exist to my knowledge.

So in selecting criteria, based on the information I have now, I could suggest this:

1. Pick a minimum number for participation, say 1% of the population; if our population is 800,000, that would be 8,000 people. Any event that attracts fewer people shouldn't be considered.

2. No for-profit events should be subsidized in this way -- e.g. SXSW and Formula-1 need to pay their own way

3. Require that the City Council unanimously vote to waive fees for any potential event, since every taxpayer is obligated to subsidize such events.
Don Zimmerman
Council Member District 6 (northwest Austin)
Leslie Pool
Posts: 231
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:22 pm

Re: City Council members as sponsors for events for fee waiv

Post by Leslie Pool »

CM Zimmerman, expecting everyone in the City to participate strikes me as an unusually high bar and would be difficult if not impossible to measure or confirm. There's an existing expectation underlying the choice of public events traditionally included in the fee waivers list, however, that may come close to what you may be trying to do, and it's in the second graf of CM Tovo's note, just above:

"The city-sponsored events are larger events ... usually community-wide in focus rather than smaller-scale events..." and she lists out two examples: the Veterans Day parade and the MLK march.

I would not be willing to put roadblocks in the way of community-wide events like the Veterans Day parade or MLK march, and cannot imagine a good argument for doing so. Other community celebrations would also very likely be on my list to approve because they're important to the Austin community (or segments of the community) that I would be interested in and willing to sponsor for a variety of reasons. I want to review the special events list so that I understand previous Council actions in advance of making future informed decisions.

As to the decision process that allowed Zilker Park's use for Cyclo-cross, I think the Council needs to understand how that came to be, too, but my intent in this case is rather different than a review of events that primarily use city streets and other hardscapes. I understand that approval of Cyclo-cross was pursued over the objections of PARD back in 2011. That's a different situation and merits review, if only to ensure it doesn't happen again.

My understanding thus far is restoration of Zilker due to Cyclo-cross will take longer than restoration of the soccer fields after ACL, and the trees may have sustained damage that we not only may not be able to reverse, but which consequences may not manifest for years, such being the nature of live oaks. Zilker Park contains vulnerable landscape and I hope any decisions we as a Council make relating to future use (especially in forested areas) are made in full appreciation of the area's fragility and the key role our urban canopy plays in sustaining wildlife and which is central to the beauty of the park.
Leslie Pool
Mayor Pro Tem
Council Member, District 7
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