City Council
MEETING DATE: 7/11/2018
TITLE:
Title
Contract for Services - Taste of Jalisco
End
FROM:
Chris Parman, Communications / Events Manager
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
Staff recommends that Council approve a contract for services agreement with Edurama Entertainment for the Taste of Jalisco Festival.
Body
BACKGROUND:
In the 2017-19 Biennial Budget, Council approved funding for the annual Taste of Jalisco Festival. During the Council's goal setting meeting at the end of January 2017, Council directed staff to move forward in contracting with a third-party to manage and operate the City's three major events; Cathedral City Hot Air Balloon Festival, Cathedral City LGBT Days, and Taste of Jalisco.
In 2017-18 Season, the City contract management services for two of three major events, but continued city management of Taste of Jalisco through the Communications / Events Manager. It was determined that the Balloon Festival and LGBT Days had been operated by City staff for three years versus just two times for Taste of Jalisco. Now that Taste of Jalisco has been run for three years by City staff (2015, 2017, 2018), it has grown large enough to attract the attention of a third-party producer.
The reasoning for contracting the major special events to third party producers was two-fold. First, these festivals had grown over the past three years of City operation where the City needed to either hire additional staff to properly implement them or risk failure if the events manager would become incapacitated for any unknown reason. Second, the preparation time to implement these three signature festivals was monopolizing the vast majority of the Communications / Events Manager's time and the City needed to better balance its efforts focused on the Communications side.
DISCUSSION:
Edurama Entertainment, owned by Tony and Sylvia Escobedo, has been part of the Taste of Jalisco Festival from its beginning. Edurama has been the producer...
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