Volunteers will determine fate of Naperville culture fund

A panel of volunteers will help decide the fate of $2.6 million accumulated annually in Naperville's culture fund.

After polling several recipients of the funds who asked for an advisory panel, the city council approved the formation of the commission at a workshop Monday.

Since the culture fund's inception three years ago, funding requests have been reviewed by a staff committee, which makes a recommendation to the city manager, who makes a recommendation to the city council. The advisory board will report directly to the council, just like any of the city's numerous other oversight committees.

The committee will likely be made up of seven to nine members. Currently, advisory board and commission spots are filled by selections made by Mayor George Pradel and approved by the council.

Councilman Richard Furstenau said he'd only be in favor of an advisory panel if the councilmen had direct oversight over the membership. He suggested every councilman handpick a member of the commission and that the terms be staggered so the board doesn't experience a mass turnover every four years.

Pradel said he would seek referrals from councilmen for members and then put together a commission made up of those recommendations. The council seemed appeased by Pradel's statement.

One of the chief concerns that has kept the council from forming an advisory panel in the past is finding membership with little to no allegiance to any of the groups seeking culture fund dollars.

"The fact is that with the volunteer spirit we have in this town, you're bound to be involved in something and we have to get beyond that," said Councilman James Boyajian. "I have no qualms about somebody being associated with something that gets funding from these funds."

Councilmen suggested any culture commissioner with conflicts could recuse themselves from discussion of that issue. The commission won't be impaneled for two years though. City officials said there's not enough time between now and the council review period for next year's requests to put together a commission for this cycle of requests. Culture fund applications are due by Jan. 7. The council meets in late March to go over the requests and approves them in April.

The council also agreed to make no changes to the eligibility requirements for culture fund dollars, but put a weighted 100-point ranking system in place to help guide decisions on requests. The requests will be given points based on purpose, impact and administration. There are subcategories within each of those priorities the requests will be judged on as well.

"What we saw in the poll most is that people wanted more objective evaluations," said Councilman Kenn Miller. "A ranking system would create more identifiable criteria, show our values and provide a number to them."

The council also directed staff to place more emphasis on capital related projects in the funding guidelines in the future.

"In 25 years we will have potentially raised $50 million and I'd like to say that $50 million did this or did that," Boyajian said. "I think about what physical assets the city has that people are going to enjoy in this community for 100 years to come and to me 10 percent of this fund every year isn't a high enough allocation."

Officially called the Special Event and Cultural Amenities Fund, it generates revenue through a 1 percent tax on food and drinks sold at all of Naperville's bars and restaurants.

It was originally conceived as a way to pay for city expenses related to services provided at communitywide events like Ribfest and Last Fling.