The Special Events and Cultural Amenities Commission is considering a sunset policy for its grant recipients.
At the commission’s latest task force meeting, officials discussed the pros and cons of dropping projects from their funding after a certain number of years.
The idea is that SECA is designed to help projects get off the ground, but not to sustain them long-term.
“Any one of our projects should show community support as evidence of their success, and in the absence of that we are there to support them as they develop a project,” said SECA Commissioner Rick Grimes. “But we are not there to provide ongoing budgetary support for a mature event.”
The commissioners said a sunset policy would reinforce this idea – that if the event is an asset to the community, the community will support the project through sponsorships or ticket sales.
The commission did say, however, that there would likely be several exceptions should a sunset policy be adopted.
The task force will continue to workshop a sunset policy and create a recommendation to city council at a future meeting.
NCTV17 is partially funded by a SECA grant.
Naperville News 17’s Casey Krajewski reports.
