The Safety and Licensing Committee met 10/23/2024. They spent around 45 minutes discussing the new proposed Special Events Policy which would allow the city to recoup up to 25% of the costs the city spends on staff and resources for special events. Currently, the city recoups 0% of those costs.
Much of the conversation revolved around how recouping costs for large events such as Mile of Music and Octoberfest would be handled. The policy included a provision that allowed the city to negotiate directly with the organizers of large-scale events with projected attendance of 10,000 or more and enter into service agreements that establish the costs to be borne by the applicants on a case-by-base basis.
The committee ended up recommending the policy for approval by a vote of 3 in favor, 1 opposed, and 1 abstention.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Representatives of the organizations that put on the largest events in the city all attended the meeting. Jennifer Stephany of Appleton Downtown, Inc which organizes the Farmers Market urged the committee to keep the reimbursement rate at or below 25%. She pointed to the various events downtown as a reason why US Venture had decided to move its headquarters there and told the committee, “Losing key community events that have become synonymous with our identity could have damaging effect on our brand and our reputation as a city. We know that the events that are hosted in downtown and throughout the community play a significant role in supporting the local economy, as well as attracting investment in our community, attracting residents and new talent to our community.”
Eric Broten of the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce which puts on License to Cruise and Octoberfest understood the city’s need to recoup some costs, but also noted that while License to Cruise and Octoberfest brought an estimated $42.3 million in economic benefit to the city, it was not a huge money maker for the Chamber.
Dave Willems, the organizer of Mile of Music, said that they put everything they make back into the event and they end up falling short every year and end up needing to make up that short fall. Increasing the costs of putting on the event would impact the event.
There seemed to be uncertainty around what the service agreements with various large-scale events would look like and how the amount of money the event organizers would have to pay to the city would be determined. The base policy of 25% would be a starting point of the negotiations, and if no agreement could be entered into, 25% would be what they would pay.
Mayor Woodford stated that the city would not seek to have large event organizers pay more than 25%. Ideally, the discussions about service agreements would provide an opportunity for the city to talk with event organizers about how the event was run and figure out a way to provide services differently or set up the event differently in such a way that it reduces the impact on city services.
Mayor Woodford also stated, “[T]he other component of this is that all of these costs are connected to human beings and human capacity from the city, and it has gotten increasingly more difficult to fill special shifts, to fill overtime slots. The days of long like waiting lists and queues—the police department used to have this elaborate system, I’m told, for sorting out who was going to get those overtime shifts for events. It’s different now in terms of filling those shifts. And so, where we can, we also want to try and reduce that overall burden, because it does take human capacity to do these things.”
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) was concerned about the possibility of having large events pay back a smaller percentage of costs that small events even though those large events required a larger amount of city services.
He went on to say, “I know we’re trying to do the right thing here, and a lot of thought has gone into this so far. Appreciate that we’re working with our event organizers to try and find something that works for them, still allows events, but also helps the city recoup its costs, because we—ultimately our job here as this committee and Council is to be accountable to how tax dollars are spent. And I think the fact that not everybody partakes in all of these events is a consideration for us. I don’t know where that necessarily falls for all of us on, you know, in terms of priority here, but I recognize that this is, this is a difficult decision.”
He wasn’t sure charging only 25% was the right amount. It felt low to him.
City Clerk Kami Lynch said that city’s that recouped 100% of the cost had had those policies for many years, so they didn’t receive much pushback from event organizers. She noted that every two years, the fee schedule in the policy would be updated to current rates which would increase the amount of money the city recouped even if it did not increase the percentage.
Alderperson Doran asked about increasing the rate beyond 25% and was told that could be done through a vote by the Common Council.
Mayor Woodford said, “[T]his is not purely a budget balancing exercise for us, and I think that’s important to note. We are we are trying to make some progress on cost recovery to support city services and operations, but it is not something that I would necessarily count on as a budget balancing tactic. So, in a in a future budget year, where we’re saying, ‘Well, how do we how are we going to land this budget? Let’s stick another 10% on the special event cost recovery.’ To me, that’s not a lever that that makes sense. This is—that’s a longer-term decision, and that’s something that that needs deeper consideration”
Mayor Woodford also pointed out that while some communities charged event organizers 100% of the municipality’s costs, those other communities did not hold large events such as Octoberfest and Mile of Music. “I think it’s just as important we look at the nature of events and programming that happen in our city and take that into account when we’re when we’re thinking about cost recovery, because these are, these are extraordinary events that happen in the City of Appleton, for not only our community, but for the Fox Cities, and we’re very proud of that, and we want that to continue.”
The committee ended up voting to recommend the policy be approved with alderpersons William Siebers (District 1), Denise Fenton (District 6), and Chris Croatt (District 14) voting in favor of it, Alderperson Doran voting again, and Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) abstaining.
[I would have liked a more complete discussion about how these events benefit the city as a whole and the many residents and businesses who do not participate in them. Yes, maybe Octoberfest brings has an economic impact of $42 million dollars, but how many businesses outside of downtown are impacted? Does that impact result in the taxes of residents being lower over time?
On a theoretical level, I don’t understand what the argument is for non-participants to be asked to foot the bill for these events.
Additionally, I don’t really understand why, if the economic impact is so great, these events are not able to turn a profit. Is it appropriate for the event organizers to be asking the city to essentially subsidize their events? If they are resulting in positive economic benefit on the scale they claim they are, would it not make more sense for them to ask the businesses that are benefiting from the events to contribute more to the cost of putting on the event?]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1217786&GUID=4D35301B-9795-4409-B33D-0E39E59BC348
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