As a member of the Exchange Club, I am troubled at the reluctance of the City Council to approve a full fee waiver for the club’s annual car show.
For the past five years, the Car Show has attracted thousands to Culver City’s newly chic Downtown. On the Saturday the show is held, the sidewalks are teeming with families, the restaurants are full and the best that Culver City has to offer is on display.
There is nothing on the Westside to match this event. Although it can’t be easily quantified, the publicity and promotional value to Culver City’s Downtown is priceless.
To plan, promote and produce this Mother’s Day Weekend show, the Exchange Club raises and expends thousands of dollars. Exchange Club members collectively volunteer hundreds of hours, giving up countless nights and weekends to make the show a success.
At last Monday’s City Council meeting, Council members were obsessed over whether to grant a full fee waiver to the Exchange Club for this event.
According to the numbers generated by the city staff, the costs associated with permitting and policing the Car Show had doubled from last year. As a result, the city staff was recommending that the Exchange Club make up the difference – nearly $10,000.
During the agonizing discussion surrounding this question, City Council members probed and prodded the Exchange Club, urging us to find ways in which we could either trim our budget or, alternatively, find a means to make the show more profitable.
In order to find a compromise, the Council delayed its decision and invited the Exchange Club to sit down with the city staff to hammer out a compromise. The Council urged us to lock the doors and remain at the bargaining table until a deal mutually acceptable to all parties could be reached. Despite the tight organizational timetable, the club agreed to meet with the staff in good faith.
After several hours of negotiation, the gap was reduced, and the Club agreed that it would put up an additional $1,800.00 to seal the deal. Members of the club attending the meeting emerged with the certainty that they had reached an agreement that it could handle, and that easily would be ratified by the Council.
The morning after the meeting, however, city staff called and said that they had revisited the numbers, and changed their minds. Instead of recommending that the Council approve a $12,000 fee waiver, it had reduced its recommendation to $10,000. This means that the club’s financial obligation would be inflated to $3,800.
This show was not conceived as a for-profit event. It was envisioned as a vehicle to promote Culver City’s Downtown business district, while raising money for charities that the Exchange Club supports.
Similar to last year, the Exchange Club plans to spend approximately $25,000 to put on the show. After all the expenses were paid last year, the Exchange Club was able to donate $2,500 to charity.
The club could bring in outside vendors to sell food in order to raise additional monies. But that would defeat the purpose of the event, and undercut the Downtown restaurants that have reaped the benefit. It could also bump up exhibitor fees to fill the budget gap. But in a tight economy, this could keep budget-minded participants from bringing their custom and classic cars to the show.
More importantly, the annual Car Show is not a City Council-sponsored event. Rather, it’s under the rubric of the Culver City Redevelopment Agency, whose charter and budget is separate from that of the city itself.
Members of the City Council wear two hats; the other is as a voting member of the Redevelopment Agency.
The overarching purpose of the Redevelopment Agency is to improve and promote Culver City. That’s exactly what the Exchange Club’s Car Show does, and dollar-for-dollar, no event on the city calendar does it better.
This Car Show does not require the city to hire additional staff or to expend added funds from its budget. All work is done by existing city staff.
The question is whether the City Council, sitting as the Redevelopment Agency, ultimately sees the value of directing its existing resources to support an event that has consistently brought immeasurable benefit to the Culver City.
If Council decides otherwise, it sadly will lose another cherished event that has been a continuing source of pride and value to this community.
Mr. Cohn, an essayist for this newspaper may be contacted atjohn@globewestfinancial.com
