Charles City Chamber, Revitalization seek county funding

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

For organizations that rely on public events for a significant part of their revenue, a year like 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic can be devastating.

That’s the reason that Charles City Community Revitalization is seeking an increase in funding and the Charles City Area Chamber of Commerce is seeking funding support for the first time from the Floyd County Board of Supervisors.

Mark Wicks, director of Community Revitalization — the Main Street Iowa program in Charles City — and the director of the Chamber, told the supervisors at a meeting Monday morning that the county had been supporting Community Revitalization since the organization was formed in 1994, and that it had been funding it at a $5,000 per year since 2002.

“There’s 55 Main Street Iowa communities, and one of the staples for being a Main Street Iowa community in the state’s eyes is the support they receive from the city and county,” Wicks said.

“We all know 2020 was an extremely difficult year for a lot of people, particularly so for non-profit organizations. We lost the majority of our fundraising events. Fundraising is half of our annual budget. … Our reserves are gone,” he said.

For the next fiscal year beginning July 1, the organization is asking for a $1,000 funding increase from the county, to $6,000, Wicks said.

“We’re not looking at a one-time shot in the arm to get us through. We trying to plan long-term going ahead,” he said. “As we all know, … nothing stays the same cost. And while we are incredibly appreciative of the county’s support, again, since 2002 that amount has not changed at all.”

County Auditor Gloria Carr asked Wicks when he thought community events would resume.

“We are optimistic that by late June, early July we will be able to have our outdoor gatherings again,” Wicks said. “We brought it down to three Party in the Parks instead of the usual five or six.”

“We’re looking at bringing in some other fun activities that you can do while you can socially distance a little more. They’re easier to disinfect and clean. … We trying to take as many steps as we can to make this safe, but still enjoyable for everybody,” he said.

Regarding the Chamber of Commerce request, Wicks said the Chamber played an important role in disseminating information from the state and federal governments to businesses, regarding COVID-19 support programs.

“It was total overload for a lot of people. We tried to break that down and send out pertinent information to members based on whether it could help them or not,” he said.

Supervisor Linda Tjaden said the Chamber did a good job in that area.

The Chamber also lobbied at the state level and through its state associations at the federal level for businesses that were falling through the cracks, Wicks said.

“Because of how many businesses were impacted by COVID, they’re having to make some real decisions just to survive,” Wicks said. Some local events were canceled last year because they typically rely on business contributions that the Chamber didn’t want to have to ask for during the pandemic.

“They support so much of our community, people don’t realize. We need to be there to support them. But that has had a huge impact on our revenue,” Wicks said.

“Chamber models are changing nationwide. … We’re reviewing everything and looking at doing things differently moving forward,” he said, adding that if cities and counties want to see their Chambers continue, to support businesses, promote tourism, marketing, quality of life issues, and events, they will need to help support the Chambers.

Wicks said he was asking the county to fund 7% of what the Chamber receives from Charles City through hotel-motel tax support, or 1% for each of the seven communities in the county. That works out to $3,522.96, he said.

“That will be new money. That’s something that the county has not been a financial supporter of. But if these are things that you want to see continue moving forward, part of the new model is we’re looking to have city and county support,” he said.

“The bottom line is, if the Chamber’s not there to do it for you, who’s going to do it for you? I hate to say it that way, but … we’re all in it together. We’re all in support of each other,” he said.

The Board of Supervisors made no commitment to Wicks, as is typical in this part of the budgeting process.

The board of supervisors typically hears funding requests and goes through department budgets in January, holds discussions and holds an initial public hearing if necessary in February, then makes final decisions, holds a final public hearing and officially passes the budget in March. Budgets must be certified to the state by the end of March.

Also at the meeting this week, the board:

• Set a public hearing for 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 26, for an amendment to the current fiscal year budget.

• Noted the hiring of Cris Parker as a GIS tech and office professional in the Assessor’s Office, to replace Jewell Flood who retired.