A month after thousands of motorcyclists roared through
Hollister, rumors have abounded that the thunderous event lost
money, but officials say the picture isn’t as bleak as some have
presumed.
A month after thousands of motorcyclists roared through Hollister, rumors have abounded that the thunderous event lost money, but officials say the picture isn’t as bleak as some have presumed.
When revenue numbers are finalized next week, Interim City Manager Clint Quilter said the rumor mongers may be quieted when they see hard numbers.
“When it’s all said and done, people will be surprised,” he said. “It brought in a lot of money.”
The city hasn’t issued the Hollister Independence Rally Committee a bill yet because many outside agencies, including different police departments and the state, have yet to issue the city a bill, Quilter said.
A full report detailing how much money was generated and from where will be given to the City Council in September. The city hopes to be able to sign a contract with HIRC for next year’s rally in September or October, Quilter said.
Until HIRC receives a finalized bill from the city, it won’t know exactly where it stands financially, said HIRC Vice President Dave Ventura.
HIRC owes the city between $260,000 and $290,000, of which $200,000 has been paid already. It leaves little left over for the nonprofit organizations it donates to every year, Ventura said.
However, considering the organization was over $45,000 in debt from last year and has to pay a huge bill to the city – one that it hasn’t had to pay in year’s past – this year’s rally did exceptionally well, he said.
“It looks good right now… The fact that we came out of the hole and were able to pay all our bills, yes, I think it was financially successful,” Ventura said. “If it wasn’t for the huge payment made to the city, we would have had well over $180,000 for charities – it would have been as much as we’d given so far.”
HIRC has been scrutinized recently for shortfalls in its projected rally revenue. The event only raised $35,000 of an estimated $100,000 from selling $5 parking passes and sales tax only collected $12,000 from $1.2 million in vendor sales.Though HIRC estimated the total amount of money coming into the city during the rally should be around $12 million, Ventura said criticizing the rally for only raking in $1.2 million from vendor sales is taking the numbers out of context.
“It’s hype,” Ventura said. “When we said that number it was not just vendors – it’s the grocery stores, hotels, gas stations, bars – all that is incorporated with the numbers given to the city, and they understood that, too.”
Hollister Mayor Tony Bruscia said there is no real way to accurately determine how much money is brought into the city during the rally because sales tax is calculated on a quarterly basis and it isn’t broken down to different types of sales.
Bruscia commended the rally for taking “great strides” this year in organizing the event and the amount of money it brought in, but also conceded there is a “great deal of room for improvement.”
Ventura said the committee needs to look closely at several aspects of the rally including the parking passes and the ineffective use of cash registers by vendors to determine how much sales tax was generated.
HIRC has hired a private contractor to secure sponsorships for next year’s rally. The event had several large sponsors this year, including Corbin Motors, Custom Chrome and Dodge, Ventura said, but was unable to obtain more because the contract they signed with the city in March didn’t give them enough time.
The hope is if enough money is generated through sponsorships, HIRC won’t have to charge for parking passes again, Ventura said.
“One thing we’re very proud about is the fact that this was a free rally,” he said. “If we have to, we’ll implement the parking passes again, but do something different.”
The parking pass plan didn’t work like organizers thought because they weren’t mandatory and police weren’t enforcing them, and the way passes were being distributed wasn’t efficient, Ventura said.
At one point there was a line of bikers backed up from Greenwood Chevrolet to Bolsa Road waiting to purchase passes, and HIRC was concerned for their safety, according to organizers.
Besides dealing with rally finances, there have been major changes in HIRC’s personnel. Executive Director Bob Beals was laid off several weeks ago, head of security Roseanne McLean was asked to resigned and president Bill Rodgers decided not to run for another term.
The changes were made as a way to restructure several key positions within the organization that will save money in the future, Ventura said.
Ventura believes organization of the rally improves every year. Whether the rally will someday be as big of a success as it’s odoriferous counterpart, the Gilroy Garlic Festival, Ventura has no doubt.
“Yes,” he said. “Absolutely.”
Erin Musgrave can be reached at 637-5566, ext. 336 or at
