Capitol Hill Community Council

Capitol Hill Community Council
Special Meeting Minutes: Candidate Presentation
May 26, 2009: 7-9pm

In Attendance: 18 community members including officers (Justin Carder, Charlette LeFevre & Hong Chhuor)

Call to Order/Introduction

Candidate Presentations

Josh Mahar: At-Large Representative Candidate
Debbie Kirchhauser: At-Large Representative Candidate
Tony Russo: Treasurer Candidate
Clark Smith: Secretary Candidate
Kami Bodily: Vice-President Candidate
Hong Chhuor: Vice-President Candidate
Jennifer Power: President Candidate
Charlette LeFevre: President Candidate

Please visit the website for candidate bios & statements.

Arts & Events Committee Funds Request

Charlette provided a brief run-down of the event and progress for those who were unfamiliar Also provided was an update regarding items that were discussed and decided upon at the last Arts & Events Committee meeting at the Seattle Gay News office on Sunday, May 24th.

Some of the biggest updates were regarding the stage – plans to host a second stage in addition to the one being hosted by Julia’s have been dropped, which removes an estimated line-item cost of $800 from expenses. The City of Seattle’s event permit and insurance costs have been paid for out of booth funds received so far. An announcement was made that Carl at Panache, a major partner of the event, has stepped down from having any further involvement with additional festival planning for personal reasons. He will continue in his role in collecting booth registrations and forwarding payments to Hong Chhuor, the CHCC Treasurer for deposit in the Council account, to be accounted for separately from the General Fund.

On behalf of the Arts & Events committee, Charlette asked for an initial outlay from the CHCC General Fund of $1,200 to cover immediate costs due. The following is a breakdown of the festival budget as presented to the Council:

A number of questions were posed by Hong in his capacity as Council Treasurer and acting in the financial interests of the Council:

1.There is talk about the City of Seattle requiring the Council to register as a business – where is this expense in the budget?

2. Is there a cost to re-route metro buses or is that cost covered in the city permitting fee?

3. Is there a contingency plan in place in the event that is not income to cover expenses? Who will be responsible if the festival goes into debt? The Council?

4. What accounts for the discriminating price structure whereby some businesses are being charged $50 and others $75? The booth application details that registration for businesses start at $75 per booth.

5. Where is the LGBT community involvement in this Pride festival? Are volunteer hours being tracked for representatives from Lambert House and PKSK?

Given some of these major concerns, Hong made a recommendation to the Council as a whole that we only approve an outlay of $200 as this is the amount that we have historically approved for other events without the expectation that the funds will be paid back. However, in the case of the Pride Festival, the $200 would be considered a loan and will need to be paid back.

Community Discussion

Hong reminded everybody that a motion was passed at Thursday’s General Meeting (5/21) that the Arts & Events Committee provide a proposal that answers the following questions by 5pm on Friday, May 22nd:

• The amount of funds requested from the Council’s General Fund.
• Whether these funds will be disbursed as a grant or a loan as detailed above.
• Clarification on the revenue-sharing provisions between the Committee & Council.
• Any other provisions that the Committee would like the Council to consider.

Although the proposed budget addresses to a certain extent the questions posed above, number of community members expressed concern over the vague nature of the proposed budget insofar as it does not identify how those funds will be spent. Justin Carder & Clark Smith in particular asked for clarification regarding what funds were going towards which line items.

In response to Hong’s question about any potential costs of re-routing transit, Charlette responded by noting that it should be covered in the city permitting fees. Paul from Broadway Video also believes that this is the case. Debbie Kirchhauser asked Charlette if she was 100% sure that there are absolutely no potential costs involved, to which Charlette responded yes. Charlette also offered to provide documentation from Seattle’s Special Events & DOT that would support this. Hong commented that from a legal and financial responsibility point of view that these documents should have been obtained and brought to the meeting to confirm which costs are covered and which are not.

Michael from Bailey Coy and Paul brought up their concerns regarding clean-up and whether there was a cost associated with that and who would be doing the clean-up. Charlette & Kami Bodily responded by saying that they expect festival volunteers to do ‘continual clean-up’ throughout the festival and made the point that since many businesses will be involved, that they will help to clean up their own store fronts. A discussion around the BIA’s clean-up services clarified that any clean-up through them would take place the following day, so it would leave at least one day’s worth of litter from the festival if we were to rely on that service.

In an effort to move forward with the proposal, Justin asked that we wrap up discussion in favor of a motion and vote. Charlette put forward the following motion, which was seconded by Phil from the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries:

The Arts & Events Committee proposes that the Capitol Hill Community Council make a loan of $1,200 from its General Fund towards the Capitol Hill Pride Festival to cover immediate expenses due. The loan will be paid back from booth registration proceeds no later than one day after the Festival on Sunday, June 28th.

In Favor: 3
Opposed: 5
Abstained: 4

Motion Fails
Hong reworded his original recommendation from when he had posed questions to the Arts & Events Committee into the following motion:

The Arts & Events Committee proposes that the Capitol Hill Community Council make a loan of $200 from its General Fund towards the Capitol Hill Pride Festival to cover immediate expenses due. The loan will be paid back from booth registration proceeds no later than one day after the Festival on Sunday, June 28th.

In Favor: 9
Opposed: 0
Abstained: 3

Motion Passes

Meeting adjourned upon completion of voting.