Kendall County Times

Village of Oswego Committee of the Whole met Oct. 3.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

CALL TO ORDER

President Ryan Kauffman called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m.

ROLL CALL

Board Members Physically Present: President Ryan Kauffman; Trustees Tom Guist, Kit Kuhrt, Karin McCarthy Lange, Karen Novy, Jennifer Jones Sinnott, and Andrew Torres.

Staff Physically Present: Christina Burns, Deputy Village Administrator; Tina Touchette, Village Clerk; Jennifer Hughes, Public Works Director; Jason Bastin, Chief of Police; Rod Zenner, Community Development Services Director; Andrea Lamberg, Finance Director; Joe Renzetti, IT Director; Bridget Bittman, Community Relations Manager- Marketing; Kevin Leighty, Economic Development Director; Madeleine Trinco, Management Analyst; Julie Hoffman, Community Relations Special Events Manager; and David Silverman, Village Attorney.

PUBLIC FORUM

Public Forum was opened at 6:00 p.m.

John Apple addressed the Board regarding the 2024 special events program. He is the conductor for the Oswego Pops Orchestra; he thanked the Board for honoring the military and honoring them at our events; he has been working with Community Relations and Public Works for the past three years; he shared a picture of a 91 year old Veteran who attended an event at the Venue; the Pops Orchestra events are not a revenue generating event, but they are willing to keep this going and hope to continue to share their vision.

There was no one else who requested to speak. The public forum was closed at 6:04 p.m.

OLD BUSINESS

There was no old business.

NEW BUSINESS

G.1 2024 Special Events Program Discussion

Deputy Village Administrator Burns and Community Relations Manager Hoffman addressed the Board regarding the special events program history and future events.

Special Events Recap and Planning

Board and staff discussion focused on thanking Trustee Kuhrt for his sponsorship assistance; this is the prime time to book bands and gather sponsorships; credit to Julie for putting together the events and Bridget for promoting and helping at the events; sponsorship money is noted in the revenue numbers and shared across all events; dollar amount assigned to the event hours= approximately $150,000.00; overtime is charged to the special event fund; hired seasonal staff for the Venue events; Admin. Assistant hired to help at the Venue and process special event permits; 50-60% of staff hours are spent on Venue events; finalize contracts from December to February; use booking agencies and one-offs for booking acts; once booked, it still involves the entire Community Relations team up until the event; a Trustee spent 12 hours getting sponsorships for the 2023 events; someone should be working on sponsorships all the time; providing a service to the residents; lower attendance this year; need better bands; better advertising; less concerts, less revenue, less people; doing an event during fireworks; Wine Off the Fox hasn’t generated revenue the past years; whether it’s not working because it was held over a holiday weekend; should hold the event the first weekend of October; staff dedicates a lot of time; great things happening; paring down the events is good; ticketed versus free events; cost of bands; attendees enjoy bringing their own food; fees charged to food vendors; whether the revenue from food vendors is important; other venues allow food to be brought in; only allowing dessert type food vendors; venue standards need to be determined; holding one event per month and one kid focused event; Back to School Bash held in 2022; event was fun but expensive; backpack drive; hemorrhaging money at the Venue; Julie was hired to do events; supplementing with part-time hires; dedicated person, for events, has been on place since 2016; Julie is taking on more work; Admin. Asst. is helping Julie and Bridget; looking at the quality of events and sponsorships; Julie has other duties besides events; a lot of internal changes; need to consider another full-time person for Community Relations; work on paring back versus hiring another person; opportunity costs; what we could be doing better; Public Works’ personnel getting pulled away to do events versus routine maintenance; having more bodies at Public Works has been beneficial for maintaining the community; renting Venue for local events; more woman focused themed events; staff will re-evaluate the rental fees, policy, and promote more; Cultural Arts Commission has worked on events in the past, but changed when they moved focus to public art; holding Venue events from Memorial Day to Labor Day; when starting something new, it takes three years to become successful; strive for large sponsorships; fiscally responsible; didn’t have as many seasonal help or sponsors in 2022; co-op with the school district; poetry concerts; moving one July event to September; hosting movies at Village Hall versus the Venue; alternate kids movies and family movies; cutting down the logistics and set-up for the movies; keep the schedule the way it is with the concerts; not ok with taking out events; like to see it successful; need better entertainment; movies were moved to the Venue because of the number of people attending (200-250 people); success is not about revenue; numbers trending in correct direction; 7-8 events going into September; no negative feedback from artists; they all want to come back; number of events needs to be balanced with staff capacity; 13 events is a lot and not doing it well; could do more if events are spread over a longer period; revamping with food aspect and streamlining events; movies are still sponsored; explore next level of concerts; having the Venue as a destination. Staff was given direction to move forward with 6-8 events with a couple movies. There was no further discussion.

CLOSED SESSION

There was no closed session.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting adjourned at 7:17 p.m.

https://www.oswegoil.org/home/showpublisheddocument/6356/638350338426770000