Last night, the Common Council Arts, Entertainment & Tourism Committee met to dole out the $20,000 budgeted by the City for events and festivals. Although a month or so ago, Alderman Rick Rector (First Ward), who chairs the committee, was lamenting that no applications had come in and reportedly made phone calls to past recipients to solicit applications, the problem last night was not too few requests but too many. With $20,000 available to give away, the requests totaled $40,700--more than twice what was available.
To winnow down the requests, Alderman John Friedman (Third Ward), who sits on the committee, suggested they immediately eliminate any request that was not from a 501(c)3 not-for-profit, because "taxpayers should not be supporting private enterprise." This seemed to impact only applicant: Hudson River Exchange, which is an LLC. Since 2013, Hudson River Exchange has been organizing the very popular weekend-long summer market in Henry Hudson Riverfront Park. Last year, the committee awarded $1,100 to the event; this year, $2,000 was requested.
Also eliminated from consideration was Historic Hudson, for a different though related reason. Historic Hudson is a 501(c)3 and has been for twenty years. To celebrate its twentieth anniversary and the renaissance that has occurred in Hudson over that time, Historic Hudson is planning to exhibit The Warren Street Project--individual portraits of all the buildings on Warren Street taken by international photographer Lynn Davis in 1994 and 1995--for the month of October. Historic Hudson was seeking $1,500 to help mount the exhibition, which requires 200 linear feet of display surface. The choice of venue--a business on Warren Street with the space and willingness to host the exhibition on the ground floor--is what eliminated Historic Hudson from consideration, because, as Rector explained it, "This is putting people in a private business."
During the discussion of for-profit versus not-for-profit, it was noted that city attorney Ken Dow had questioned the City's ability to give money to anyone. Rector explained that the entities being awarded the money were entering into a contract for services with the City, although he admitted that most of the past grant recipients breached their contract by failing to report how the money had been spent. In spite of this, the City has continued to award money to these same entities.
Perfect Ten also had their application set aside because the event they are planning for April 2017 is for women and girls. Friedman asserted that the City "cannot support anything that excludes by gender." It was decided that the committee needed legal advice to determine if the proposed event could be supported with City money.
The committee also agonized over the application submitted by Dan Udell for an event called "Summer Meet and Greet." The event is the occasion for distributing Hudson Is a Summer Festival, a guidebook Udell and his wife create to help connect kids with the various summer programs offered in Hudson. The money requested would be used to pay the cost of printing the booklet. Rector contended that the money being distributed by the committee was for events and could not be used to print a booklet, but the committee came up with a different solution. Although Udell had raised almost enough money through crowdsourcing to print the booklet in one color and was only a few hundred dollars short, the committee decided to present a resolution to the full Council to give Udell $1,500 from the general fund so that the booklet could be printed in full color.
The committee succeeded in making some tentative awards, including $5,000 to the Hudson Opera House for Winter Walk, which Friedman declared was "precisely what we should be investing in," but the total came to more than $20,000. The committee plans to hold a special meeting at which they will review their tentative allocations and make final decisions.
COPYRIGHT 2016 CAROLE OSTERINK
Carole, the reason why I assert that Winter Walk is the type of event the City should be financially supporting is because it brings tourists and visitors into the city during a non-summer month. We all know that it's impossible to find a room in town in the peak months. But the annualized average occupancy rate for lodging in Hudson is only 46% per the latest figures provided to me by the local lodging organization. And the retailers also suffer during the off months. If the city wants to support a sustainable year-round economy, it's imperative that the City do what it can to make that happen.
ReplyDeleteWatch that not excluding by gender isn't really the thin side of a wedge.
ReplyDeleteDo we even have public restrooms which separate by gender? We do in our schools, but the details won't matter when it comes time to pass the latest gimmick legislation aching to put Hudson on the map, previous egg-the-face results notwithstanding.
On the plus side, if public monies cannot exclude by gender, then they can't exclude by race either. We'd be one step closer to that color-blind world Reverend King spoke about, which has continued to guide my own thinking since I was a child. No excuses, no exceptions, Dr. King had it right all along.
You gotta keep an eye on people's wedges ...
As I read the mass gathering permit information in the Charter, any group can apply for a mass gathering permit. I'd like to see where in the Charter that only non-profits can ask for event funding.
ReplyDeleteArtsWalk puts art into private businesses, and I do not see a difference with what Historic Hudson wishes to do.
I am a grant panelist for Columbia County, re-funding NYSCA funding for community projects in the County, and we don't have the confusion witnessed last night.
A most sensible comment. Thank you.
DeleteIt might behoove our leaders to read David Ricardo and get an understanding of diminishing returns, where each additional tourist added in summer alienates local customers and diminishes their business during winter.
ReplyDelete