On Wednesday, the Martinez City Council said it needed more time to discuss and perform a deeper dive into special events policy before making any decisions.
During its special meeting, where it received a report for its 2023 event recap and possibly adjust its Special Event Policy, the council took no action.
The council was asked to receive a report, hold discussion and provided feedback on special events from its policies to potentially adding or subtracting events, however, due to time constraints it was determined a second meeting dedicated only to events would be needed to fully dissect the issues.
The council will also spend more time on the proposed $30k multicultural event for September and determine if it will be a single event or break that out into multiple events over the course of the year–possibly seeking more community input. The council agreed that movies in the park would be a good idea to add to this years calendar.
The council will also dive deeper into its special event policy which includes some groups being eligible to be granted first opportunity to reserve dates, times and locations—which includes the Martinez Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Martinez & Co, the Martinez and Mt. Diablo Unified School Districts and several other non-profits.
Staff also highlighted how the city had 120 special events that were permitted with an average of 10 per month excluding the farmers market—a 57% increase from 2022.
City Council Meeting Recap
Assistant city manager Lauren Sugayan presented the item to the council — see staff report for full details of policy and items discussed.
“The big goal tonight is to get your feedback. We have been doing things the same way here related to special events for years, if not decades. Some events for decades. So its entirely up to you here tonight whether we should be shifting, maintaining or becoming more creative with our approaches here,” stated Sugayan.
She highlighted the goals of the work session were to streamline the application process, create more equity in the application process, get feedback on recurring city organized events and receive feedback on potential new event opportunities.
She also explained that once an event is approved, it requires 2-4 hours of public works support. They also have 2-4 hours, or more, for administration review per application—some events require much more time. Recreation, public works and police work all major events.
The recommended revisions included
- Rescind the priority scheduling and preferred status policy
- Streamline the application process
- Online; must complete entire application
- Shortened application
- 90 day minimum application submission
- Monthly limit
- Strengthen solid waste and sustainability provisions
- Track and evaluate costs in 2024 special events.
When discussing 2024 events, Sugayan shared they wanted to increase the 2024 events noting a lot of Martinez events have alcohol.
“A lot of our events in Martinez have alcohol and so we really want to figure out opportunities that do not have alcohol,” stated Sugayan. “We also want to make sure all parts of the city are served… how do we think about rotating events across the city so everyone has access to events.”
With future events, Sugayan did a scan of other local cities from San Ramon to Richmond and a lot were similar, but what was missing was a movie in the park series.
Councilmember Debbie McKillop asked about a concerts in the park type of event being considered in the future.
Sugavan stated they could combine it with movies in the park like some other cities do.
“Thank you for that feedback, we have heard that come up a lot,” stated Sugavan. “Movies in the park is easy because we are given a cost and someone comes in and does it all. Its low maintenance, but thank you for that feedback.”
She then went into the proposed multicultural event.
“I live in a city that does a lot of multicultural events, I also managed a lot multicultural events in the last city I worked for. It varies city I worked in they did one big festival to bring lots of food and represent all cultures and a committee that came together and they really built it up,” shared Sugayan. “The city where I live, they take a different approach where they splatter the cultural events throughout the year from Cinco De Mayor, MLK, its like a compilation of smaller scale events. We were trying to think what we could do given our smaller resources and our calendar that might make sense and that is where we came up with a festival idea.”
She noted this came through the ARDPIE Task force (Anti-Racism & Discrimination and Pro-Inclusion & Equity) and was conceptual in nature and the council can go forward or go a different route.
Tracey Webb, who was helping with the festival concept, shared she didn’t like the term Diversity Festival but preferred Martinez Multicultural.
“To me, when I listen to Lauren and Debbie, this is about how people feel when they come into Martinez for this event. It should be welcoming and inviting, inclusive, colorful and all your senses should be stimulated,” explained Webb. “I Know you have had a PRIDE event, a Lunar New Year, a Juneteenth event, there is no way I think these events should stop, they should stand on their own and the city should continue to give the grants, representation matters, this festival that we are talking about is really a draw to the city. Martinez is not that diverse, there is certain populations that are higher than others, but surrounding you is all these wonderful, interesting communities, if you have a festival like this they will continue to come to your city because it’s a wonderful city once you get there and its beautiful, people are kind and welcoming. It can showcase how these cultures support one another.”
She called the event to be co-created with diverse constituents. I would not support helping this if we didn’t have listening sessions and have people rolling up their sleeves to co-create this with both the city and the public.
“People really enjoy this type of work,” stated Webb saying it would fail if they do not include community voices.
Sugavan shared that she did reach out to other cities and not everyone does it, but said Hercules was going to do one this year, Benicia is on its third year.
Council Discussion
Councilmember Jay Howard asked about the impacts of changing the preferred priority scheduling and preferred status and what impacts that would have on the Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Martinez.
Sugavan shared the city would determine which event goes forward based on council priorities while putting it on the city to make those decisions based on what you guys think is most important for the community.
Howard said he liked the current list and wanted more music while he also supported a diversity festival.
Vice Mayor Mark Ross stated they needed another workshop because they did not have enough time to discuss, but was in favor of continuing the current slate of events, movie in the parks was a great idea and was in favor of a multicultural festival.
Ross also questioned whether this rises to the level of needing to hire a person full time to handle events. He acknowledged why staff could be frustrated.
“Given the complexity and importance of this, should we be considering a full time position to bring this into a holistic view,” stated Ross. “We have an outdoor dining program, tie into the music festival which should be tying into the special events. We have all these events, Earth Day and park openings, Cesar Chavez Day, it’s a federal holiday and we don’t do anything… we need somebody to look at this and put it all together in line with our community standards.”
Mayor Brianne Zorn stated she was unsure she wanted to continue with the current slate of events because although some were new, some they have done for years and maybe they didn’t want to do them that way anymore and instead bring in other events such as the multicultural events.
She continued saying in their next workshop they should go event by event and make decisions. She supported movies in the park and liked the idea of more live music—currently driven by local businesses and wanted the city to invest in city sponsored live music. She also liked the multicultural festival idea.
Councilmember Satinder S. Malhi, agreed with Ross that they may need to look at someone coming on board and become a coordinator for the events.
“If we are moving to become more assertive in these spaces, its going to take someone with that requisite skills and background,” stated Malhi. “Its about time management and how to disperse this from everything else going on.”
He also questioned the preferred status policy and how staff would weight and outside group coming in versus one the city assists.
“In my mind it’s like an organization is based in Martinez, funded by the taxpayers of Martinez, help me reconcile that,’ stated Malhi.
City Manager Michael Chandler, shared another component is time that a group was doing an event and the idea was to get events onto the calendar so others knew and could work around events already put in place.
“The new philosophy is kind of like lets see who wants to host events in Martinez and lets gather the information all at once and lets see if we can work it out,” stated Chandler suggesting if two events were wanting to be held on the same day, could there be flexibility in moving an event.
Sugayan added that this was unique to Martinez because most cities do not have preferred status and everyone has the same process.
Malhi shared that during his time with the ARDPIE Task Force that they discussed equity and agreed there were some barriers in the City of Martinez.
“Martinez is changing and we do have new residents. New interest coming through and how do we balance that?” asked Mahli. “It’s a very legitimate question and I want to be fair to everyone. It might be worthy of another study session.”
He highlighted although PRIDE and Juneteenth were not included on the list, they were well attended and well received events.
Zorn jumped in after some back and forth between Sugavan and Mahli stating her goal was to have another meeting to go through each event and make decisions on what the city should focus on in terms of events, combining events, new events or outside events.
Malhi urged this to be a collaborative process where everyone was heard.
“This is too important for us to just move onto the next thing. This is something that deserves our full attention and something that for our diverse stakeholders they need to be heard, it’s important,” said Malhi. “I am committed to ensuring a fair and equitable process.”
McKillop said she would love to see more music events while bringing people together with other events. She agreed they needed more discussion and another meeting to allow more people to provide feedback. She was also in favor of streamlining things with online but noted staff would still need to be available to help people with their events.
“One of the things was limiting the number of events each month. I thought about that and I am not sure I love that idea because some events are very small and some are very large. Just to throw out a number, we might exclude an event if we set a number at 5 or 10 or something because each event takes a different number of person hours and different resources. I want to make sure we are talking about the event and not the number,” stated McKillop. “I trust you will be able to evaluate the complexity and the resources necessary and schedule, but hate a hard number, it makes me nervous.”
She also suggested bringing back the Mutt Strut as people bring their dogs and its family oriented without alcohol. She agreed a second session was needed but said a change is needed while moving towards the staff recommendation, but needed more information.
Public Comments (note — Paraphrased)
- Sarah Tucker – appreciated the “diversity festival” would become the “multicultural festival” but as a primary organizer of Martinez Pride, she felt strongly that before they spend $30k on a brand new event, that they invest more in current events. To say we will give you $15k for this event but we will give you $2,500 that feels icky. It doesn’t feel like you are welcoming pride and same for Juneteenth. She also asked before investing in a multicultural festival that they survey the community to find out what events they want in Martinez and have others weigh in before starting something new.
- Unknown Speaker– Said no one knew what or where it came from noting she went to HS in Napa with a handful of people of color was trying to bring in more culture events and their idea was Chinese Food. She said she was part of Pride and Juneteenth event, she still does not know what Martinez vision is for diversity and no idea what the values are. She also said the ARDPIE Task Force committee got hijacked by the city. There are no commissions or city appointed boards that address anything and a lot of cultural events did was not bring diversity but highlighted the issues that committees face. She also wanted Maritnez to understand the audience so events have substance, educational but also fun. She said without substance it wont mesh. Encouraged staff to work on goals and implement diversity within it.
- Craig Lazzeretti – he suggested with the movie nights they be family friendly and look at the selection with an eye towards diversity and reflect different cultures, ethnicities and backgrounds. Encouraged Martinz to also reflect back in history and look at the people who they look up to as “heroes” and realize people are all human with flaws and products of their times while their views on race cannot be “whitewashed”. He also supported a multicultural event to help build bridges.
- Lisa – wanted some consideration on timelines between events. Encouraged the city to not create policy that competes against itself.
- Unknown Speaker – said there was some flexibility in the timeline of similar events being six-weeks before and six-weeks after but noted they did not want to dilute the market and customer base with a bunch of similar events—such as not needing 3 or 4 beer festivals in a month. Using the beer festival as an example, it helps raise 75% of their funds for the year and goes back into the community and other events they can host.
- Justin – echoed some of the previous speakers on the multicultural event in trying to make it a “catch all event, it just feels weird”. It would be nice to see them all in one place, there is value in giving those communities/identities the opportunity to see those spaces honored on a calendar much in the same way as the rich American traditions.
Zorn said they would be having the discussion in the future and the meeting was supposed to be focused on the logistics of events scheduling, the diversity festival was well intended, it derailed the conversation.
‘It made it clear we need to have this conversation with much more depth,” stated Zorn. “We really need to have this conversation in much more detail and come to an agreement about what we want.”
Zorn requested at the next discussion, staff bring back options for music events into the list and talk about public-private partnerships for events to help with funding.
Mahli added that he would like staff on their list to identify where the events are taking place as a majority of them are downtown and the city needed to do better to spread them around the rest of the city.
“It’s very important, especially those people south of 4th Street feel connected,” stated Mahli. “When we look at the past, as long as I can remember, you don’t see a lot of city sponsored events south of 4th Street in comparison to what is happening around here. I get it, but we can do a movies in the park in Hidden Lakes Park, or Golden Hills. I just want us to think about it.”
Howard added that it was also important that Martinez stick with what has worked—some things should go away, but there are rock solid events from 4th of July to parades.
Ross suggested when it came to diversity that maybe they look at a series of festivals instead of one giant multicultural event to allow everyone to have their own space and express themselves freely, not just a single day.
McKillop said she looked forward for the next session as they just don’t have enough time to discuss everything and encouraged staff to encourage other locations for events.
No date was scheduled for when this item will return for discussion.
Photo posted by City of Martinez
Agenda & Documents:
- Staff Report – Special Events Workshop
- Attachment A – List of Special Events 2023
- Attachment B – Current Special Event Policy
Previous Story:
1 comment
I think City of Martinez opened up pandoras box and you are going to have a situation where many people are not going to be happy in the end when they have an event not approved or bumped for something else. Way to go local government in further complicating things for everyone. Ever think that if something is not broke you don’t touch it?
Comments are closed.