Group seeks city money to continue funding for part-time
help
The Hollister Downtown Association is seeking $20,000 from the
Redevelopment Agency to continue funding an events coordinator
position designed to promote and expand events in the city’s
historic business district.
The RDA last year funded the part-time position, held by Denise
Cauthen-Wright, who has worked on attracting event sponsors as well
as attracting vendors and participants to various downtown
events.
Group seeks city money to continue funding for part-time help
The Hollister Downtown Association is seeking $20,000 from the Redevelopment Agency to continue funding an events coordinator position designed to promote and expand events in the city’s historic business district.
The RDA last year funded the part-time position, held by Denise Cauthen-Wright, who has worked on attracting event sponsors as well as attracting vendors and participants to various downtown events.
The funding request was discussed at a recent meeting, but final approval is not expected until a quarterly budget meeting in early October. Until then, the HDA is funding Cauthen-Wright’s salary.
HDA Executive Director Brenda Weatherly asked for two years’ funding for the event coordinator position, but was rebuffed by the RDA board – which is comprised of city council members.
“Given the current economy, the agency board is trying to be fiscally conservative,” she said, noting that the RDA is hoping to set up reporting requirements to ensure that the investment in the coordinator brings returns. “I totally respect their desire to have us report back to them to ensure that the money they give to us is generating positive economic impacts.”
City Manager Clint Quilter said that while the RDA board did not officially approve the one-year funding request, “the consensus was that they’d support it.”
“They are interested in having the downtown association demonstrate an increase in tax revenues from the events” promoted by the part-time employee, he said.
Ultimately, all sides agree, the goal is to have revenue from downtown events fully support the event coordinator position, so additional RDA funding is not required.
“(Last year,) we weren’t in the economic slump we’re in now and we had anticipated the position would generate enough income to support itself,” Weatherly said. “We’re not there yet, but we did see a marked increase in vendor participation at the street festival. That position made a huge impact. We figured this is what we need to do to grow our events and make them bigger and better, instead of just maintaining what we’ve been doing.”
The HDA’s position is that with one full-time person – Weatherly – and one part-time administrative assistant, it is difficult to expand downtown events without a third part-time person who can devote the time to reach out to vendors and promote to the community.
“You just can’t make things bigger and better unless you have time to devote to that,” she said.
Weatherly cited the Downtown Farmers Market as an example of an event that began to grow when it brought on a coordinator – Tammy Jackson – who can focus on running the event.
“The thing took off because she has the time to devote to doing that,” Weatherly said. “She’s not being pulled in all these directions (as the HDA’s administrative assistant was when she was in charge of the market). If you dedicate the time to doing something you get a much better payoff and allow it to grow.”
