TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
Bruce Moe, City Manager
FROM:
Alexandria Latragna, Acting Communications and Civic Engagement Manager
SUBJECT:Title
Consideration of the City Sponsoring a Juneteenth Celebration Event at Bruce's Beach Park (City Manager Moe).
(Estimated Time: 30 Mins.)
DISCUSS AND PROVIDE DIRECTION
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council discuss and provide direction of the City sponsoring a Juneteenth celebration event at Bruce's Beach Park.
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FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Should City Council direct staff to proceed with sponsoring this event, a total amount of expenditures for the event would need to be established and the Council would have to consider an appropriation from the unreserved General Fund balance at a future Council meeting. City Council may wish to authorize staff to seek sponsorships from community groups to offset the cost of holding the event.
BACKGROUND:
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the date on which enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally received news that they had been set free by the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier, and that the Civil War had ended two months earlier. It is an official federal holiday and the oldest known commemoration of the abolition of slavery in the United States.
In past years, residents and visitors informally gather at Bruce's Beach Park to observe and celebrate Juneteenth. Recently, there have been a number of requests from community members to host a Juneteenth celebration at Bruce's Beach Park.
On July 17, 2018, the City Council approved the City's Special Events Policy which creates guidelines and procedures by which outside organizations can apply to hold special events in public spaces. Last year, the City Council considered a request to update the Special Event Policy to remove the exclusion of Bruce's Beach and 8th Street and Larsso...
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