Write a commentDear City Residents: Monday night, the Common Council will review and vote on a series of proposals related to the use of public space and "city sponsorship" of many events that are set to take place this summer. Let me first state this: I am not opposed to any entity wanting to hold events in the City of Oswego, nor hold events on public space with the proper permits and at times the proper insurance. Furthermore, my opinions are not directed at any specific company or organization. I share my thoughts based upon a broader view of our City, our resources, intended purpose and use of public funds in addition to the views of many residents that have contacted me over the past week.
When I began my campaign and started to speak with residents of the Third Ward, I consistently stated that one of the things I would do if elected as a Councilor would be to analyze each proposal that came before the Council, secure the relevant facts, ask many questions and make a sound decision, with always the residents and taxpayers of this City in the forefront of my mind. I did that with the Website proposal, I did that with the parking policy and now I am doing that with these recent requests brought before the Council regarding the use of public space, the collection (or waiver of fees) and related requests for "city sponsorship" of costs related to Fire, Police and DPW services as they relate to the events proposed. As I began to evaluate these proposals, I quickly began to realize the importance of what was being proposed. I asked myself, “If we approve these proposals, do we have to approve all proposals like this that come before the Council?” Or conversely, I asked “What grounds would we have to deny other proposals of a similar request if we approve the ones before us?” As I began to ask these questions, more and more began to come to the surface to the point where I started to become very concerned about what we were doing as a City and the type of precedents that we were setting.
Here are the points that I am most concerned about...
1. City Sponsorship - What does it truly mean? Have we determined a legal definition of it? Should a municipality be "sponsoring" events? What is our exposure (legal risk) when we sponsor something as a municipality? As pointed out by our City Attorney, we currently do not have any definition of this term and we should be cautious when applying such terms to anything including these events and any others proposed by event producing companies without a clear definition being applied.
2. Precedent Setting - If we as a City begin to provide “City Sponsorship” to events before the Council Monday night and waive fees/costs of services, what is the criteria moving forward for anything else that comes before the Council? How do we in fact say “no” to any other event proposals that comes before the Council that requests similar waivers?
2. Loss of Revenue - Every time as a City we waive a fee, we are losing potential sources of income to our City that is in an otherwise deficit situation. How can we reasonably waive fees and waive reimbursements for services when we have pending shortfalls in our budget in addition to the increases in taxes over the past couple of years, reduction in services, public outrage over water/sewer bills and so on? In addition, how can we as a Council continue to apply pressure to our DPW, Fire and Police to lower costs when we as a Council approve the absorption of costs for events? As a City, in our own microcosm way, we are levying unfunded mandates on our City service providers. As a City, we do not provide these Departments additional funding for these events (with the exception of Harborfest and in a way the already Municipal sponsored events that are associated with the Chamber of Commerce).
4. Quality of Life - The argument laid out to us as a Council is that when we waive fees and absorb costs, we are improving the quality of life by helping these events exist which in turn brings tourists to our City, brings exposure to the City and so on. While it may look good on the surface to say that, does it? Let me provide an example. When we charge fees to use the ice skating rinks, where does that money go? Into a reserve account for the ice rinks. What do we do with that money? We invest it back into the facilities such as the new LED lighting that is before the Council for approval on Monday. Are we not adding to the quality of life for the City by keeping our facilities up to date and making improvements as a result of having the funding to do it because we collected the fees in the first place? I think it does as the rinks then have the opportunity to be used more and more as they are more and more attractive. When we do not charge fees, we lose the capability to bring in additional income to reinvest in our parks, Wrights Landing, Veterans Stage, the band stand and so on. We are able to at least offset some of the costs associated with our public facilities IF we are collecting the fees for them...To me that IS the investment in Quality of Life as opposed to the disinvestment we currently see. Replacing light bulbs in our parks, painting playgrounds, repairing and upgrading the stage, repairing the band stand, fixing the pavilions, painting the river-walk and so on; that is the type investment we should be making as a City in our City. The fees that are collected can and should help offset the costs of improving and maintaining our public spaces. How are these not investments in our community? These investments require funding, and that funding is, in part, generated through the collection of fees. Now, I do not believe we have consistently collected fees in the past, but perhaps we need to begin...Do you think that any private facility would consistently waiver their room charges for private events? Most of the time it’s no, because those room fees go to offset the operation of those facilities. The same principle applies here.
5. Other entities are "sponsoring" like I Love NY and the Canal Corp, shouldn't the City do the same? The answer is a simple no....And that is because those entities are NOT municipalities. Their sources of revenue are different and have been designated for different purposes.
6. Municipal Events- Currently the City as a part of their budget process already designates events that it believes should be "City Sponsored" events. Money is allocated and resources are directed. Events such as Independence Day Parade, Pumpkin Fest, Summer Concerts, Project Bloom and the Farmers Market have been designated as “City sponsored” by virtue of an agreement with the Chamber of Commerce, which has agreed to act as an agent of the City in the execution of the aforementioned events. The other event that is “City sponsored’ is Harborfest. As a City, we have already decided what is "City sponsored" and have directly linked it to the budget process that begins in August, which is where it should be linked to. If the City wants to include other events as being "City sponsored" then I believe that should be part of the same budget process, not added on later. When we consider designating additional events outside the aforementioned budget process as "City Sponsored" events, we have to review the request against some sort of standard. I would argue that we have actually already set that standard in place. We currently fund Chamber events and Harborfest as determined by the Council and Mayor through the budget process, nothing more.
7. Now, what needs further review and analyzing are the agreements that the Chamber of Commerce is now making with private, for profit, companies to execute the very events that have been allocated by virtue of the Municipal sponsorship agreement the City has with them specifically for the Independence Day Parade, the Summer Concert Series and the CNY Pumpkinfest. Beginning in 2015, these events were outsourced to private companies for management and production. The Chamber of Commerce maintains a relationship with these events, but most of the City allocation for these events are passed directly onto the private for profit entities. In addition, all of the waivers for fees and costs related to services for these events as if the Chamber was still directly managing them. While these events continue to be executed, any profit generated through these events are retained by the private event manager and not returned to the City to offset any of the costs or monies allocated by the CIty. As a private company, the opportunity for profit generation is greatly increased when the City is waiving all of the fees and services associated with these events and for any other proposal that requests waivers of fees and costs associated with services for a specific event. Why should that be? Why would we be in the business of subsidizing for profit companies at all in this way?
8. For Profits Are In The Business To Make Profit/Or Another Way, "These Events Do Not Make A Profit, So We Need the Money/Sponsorship" - Any business is in the business to make profit including those that produce and manage events, including nonprofits I might add (although with non-profits, the “profit” is invested back into the organization). Every for profit business makes profit and/or gains in some sort of way from their business activity, or they would not be business very long. I firmly believe that every event that comes before the Council makes profit or has measurable gains associated with it in some sort of way. Most events charge vendor fees, participation fees, achieves sponsorship and so on. These events make enough money to cover the costs associated with them and then some. Furthermore, these companies get immeasurable public exposure when producing these events. As a for profit business, sometimes the ability to market your business in such a public way (especially when many of the events that come before the Council are very publicly marketed events) is profit enough considering the potential work, contracts, opportunities that can be generated from such marketing exposure of the managing company. Why should the City (and the taxpayers) add to the amount of money any business is making by waiving all of the fees and services for that event, service, business? Why should the profitability of a business be determined, in part, by the direct subsidization it gets from the City in terms of waivers and absorption of costs? To me, as a business on receiving end of that deal, that would be awesome! I get “sponsorship” from the City (in some cases) and do not have to pay the City for any the services and use of public space and I get to keep all of the profit at the end. Should the taxpayers really be floating that bill so any business can make profit? Any revenue generated, directly or indirectly, is potential profit for the company producing it, again with the taxpayer subsidizing all the costs of fees/services.
Yes, there is a ton of work needs that is done to make these events successful and to do them well. Most, if not all of these events are well done in many, many ways. Any of the points above are not to directed to suggest that any event that comes before the Council is not a “good” event. But I believe it is our duty as a Council and myself as a representative, the review, analyze and discuss everything that comes before us and ask the the fundamental question “What is the benefit to the citizens of the City of Oswego”? As a City and as a Council, when we spend the taxpayers money, we have to ensure that we are spending it in a responsible, cost effective way. As a Council, we have to ensure that we are directing our very limited municipal dollars, first and foremost, to our most basic responsibilities/services. As a City, we need to provide these services at levels that can deliver those most basic of services that impact all city residents directly. I believe that what is before the Council regarding events does not benefit all city residents directly nor does it satisfy the tenants of providing basic services/responsibilities to all city residents. As a result, I believe the Council should take action against these requests and any others like them in future until we can come up with a standard process/policy for such requests.
Thank you for time and I invite you to attend any and all Council meetings.
In service,
Nathan Emmons
Councilman, Third Ward
City of Oswego
*** Photos by Jerry Maher
