Noche de Gala: A benefit for historic preservation?
By SHELDON GARDNER
sheldon.gardner@staugustine.com
The Noche de Gala has been billed as a fundraiser for historic preservation in St. Augustine, but city officials said the event made little to no profit most years.
The black-tie gala celebrates the birthday of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, St. Augustine’s founder, and has attracted Spanish officials and local dignitaries.
The gala began as a way to wine and dine people, shine a light on the city’s historic preservation efforts and gain support for historic properties, said Tim Burchfield, assistant city manager.
“It was normally pretty much a break-even endeavor,” Burchfield said.
The city has run the event since the late 1990s, and Burchfield said part of the gala’s purpose was raising funds.
“Now over the years we never got any of those people that wanted to stroke a check, but the gala kept going on,” Burchfield said. “And, to be honest with you, the vast majority of years that thing didn’t make money. It lost money.”
Burchfield said the procession leading to the gala some years added to the expense.
The issue of the city’s involvement with the Noche de Gala is set to be discussed during current budget talks. In recent months, spending for the 450th anniversary celebration and management of contracts related to the 450th, including the gala contracts, have come under increased scrutiny. The mayor and some residents called for an audit of those contracts recently, but the focus turned away from the 450th to broader improvements in the city’s contracting processes.
A review of public records by The St. Augustine Record and interviews with current and former city officials found:
■ The gala has been held since the 1990s, with the city paying expenses up until 2011. In more recent years, the costs for the gala and related expenses ranged from about $46,000 to about $72,000. Tickets purchased by gala attendees ($195 each this year) and sponsorships helped offset most of the costs of the gala.
A former city official has said before that the city had made a profit of up to several thousand dollars in a few years in the early to mid-2000s. But current city officials could only point to one year they knew for sure there was a profit — and that was for $2,907.17 in 2011. The city could not provide an accounting of what was gained or lost in other years without doing extensive research.
■ The city paid a total of about $51,000 for tickets for city officials, their spouses and other guests to attend galas between 2005 and 2015.
■ News releases and other materials describe the gala as a fundraiser with proceeds supporting historic preservation. Some current and former city officials, however, say it wasn’t intended to make money, while others say it was at least supposed to break even. But if the city included the overhead costs it took for the years it produced the event, one city official said, the gala never made money.
■ The city signed sponsorship agreements with the Casa Monica to produce the Noche de Gala, which included the use of parking lots and the 450th logo, starting in 2012. Officials said the agreements covered through 2014. But a drafted agreement to produce the 2015 gala was never signed, even though the Casa Monica produced the event this year.
■ In years when the contract was signed, the Casa Monica agreed to gift any proceeds to the city to be earmarked for preservation of the Lightner building. However, this year the Casa Monica gifted proceeds of $4,000 to about $6,000 to the Lightner Museum, which is separate from the city.
City officials say the gala has been about more than raising funds.
“The gala allows the city to broaden awareness of its heritage, emphasizing the role that Spain and Spanish settlers played in establishing the first permanent European Colony in what is now the United States,” according to an invitation for the 2009 gala kept in city clerk records.
The invitation for the 490th birthday of Menendez describes the event as “a grand masked ball,” featuring magicians, tarot card readers and 16th century musicians. Guests were to enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in the Lightner ballroom and “dinner and dessert on the mezzanine and lower tier ... drinks and dancing until midnight.”
It also says: “Your participation helps us to celebrate our history, and your purchase of a ticket contributes to preserving our historical resources.”
Awareness of the city’s historic properties has led to some work at the Lightner building and elsewhere in the city, said City Manager John Regan. The Lightner building was Henry Flagler’s Alcazar Hotel.
Still, the future of the gala is in doubt.
The city stopped hosting the gala during the recession, Regan said. He said it’s his understanding the Casa Monica isn’t interested in hosting it again.
Whether the gala will continue, and in what form, is a question to be answered by commissioners. They have expressed support for continuing the gala, which some said is useful for building relationships.
Some residents, however, questioned the cost of the event and its benefit to the city.
“Why pay for an event that is supposed to be a fundraiser when you are losing money on it?” asked Sigrid Pilzuhn, a Davis Shores resident. “Events like that should not lose money ... (without raising money) it’s basically nothing more than a social event.”
Officials didn’t expect the gala to make a profit, said Mark Litzinger, director of the city’s finance department.
“It was always expected to break even,” he said.
But if personnel costs were factored into the city’s expense to produce the event, “It never made any money whatsoever,” Litzinger said.
Historic preservation
The Noche de Gala had several purposes, and fundraising for historic preservation was just one of them, said Bill Adams, former director of the historic preservation and heritage tourism department.
It was about celebrating Menendez’s birthday and the city’s relationship with Aviles, as well as developing enthusiasm for historic preservation.
“It was intended to be a fundraising device as well,” Adams said.
The department ran the event until 2011, when the city eliminated the department.
The city spent thousands each year for the gala — more than $68,000 for the 2011 event — and sometimes for related events.
After the 2011 event, the city signed a deal allowing the Casa Monica to produce the event at the Casa Monica’s own expense.
The agreement allowed for the Casa Monica to use city streets, parking lots and the city’s 450th anniversary logo. And it received Tourist Development Council funds for the event. It received about $2,800 in TDC money for the procession and related costs in 2012, according to documents and Glenn Hastings, executive director of the St. Johns County Tourist Development Council. And it received about $6,352 in 2015.
The TDC money comes from funds set aside for arts, culture and heritage expenses, Hastings said.
The event has been supported by local residents since it began.
John Fraser, general manager and owner of the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, has attended the event with his wife.
He said his business has sponsored the event, including $5,000 sponsorships.
“I kind of assumed that there was something left over after the event,” Fraser said. “I’m disappointed that more had not gone to the cause it had meant to help.”
Helene Sullivan, of St. Augustine, said she has attended the Noche de Gala with her husband for more than a decade since about 2001. They saw the event advertised and thought it would be fun.
“We loved the idea of this whole thing,” she said.
It was an opportunity to get dressed up and go to what was, in some years, a lavish masked ball, she said. Also she thought it supported preservation of historic resources in the city.
“I just assumed that there was some kind of profit,” Sullivan said.
The expenses for the city were not limited to production of the gala.
The city has hosted a Spanish delegation, and Spanish officials have attended the gala. In 2011, the city wrote a check for $1,253 for the Spanish delegation’s stay at the Casa Monica Hotel during the time of the gala, according to Meredith Breidenstein, deputy director of St. Augustine’s finance department. The city paid for that expense from the special events budget in the general fund.
The city continued to spend money on tickets for city officials, their spouses and other guests to attend after the Casa Monica Hotel took over production of the gala. The city paid about $51,000 combined for Noche de Gala tickets for events from 2005 to 2015, according to records from the finance department.
The city’s unwritten policy has been to encourage officials to attend certain events to represent the city, Regan said.
Regan said the cost of sending city leaders to the gala and other events should be considered in comparison to the overall city budget. The city spent more than half a billion dollars keeping everything running since about 2005, Regan estimated. And of that, about $51,000 was spent on Noche de Gala tickets.
“So my point is, it’s a very, very small amount of money,” Regan said, in comparison to the entire city budget.
Cost versus benefit
The last time the city produced the event in 2011, it made a profit of about $2,900. The total cost of the event was $68,122.83, and revenue was $71,030, according to data provided by Breidenstein.
A story in 2008 in The Record said the city considered dropping the gala after a few years of it barely making a profit. At the time, Catherine Culver, current Federal 450th Commemoration Commission executive director, said the gala made a profit of between $1,000 and $5,000.
But the city wasn’t able to immediately provide an exact accounting of what the event made, or lost, other than in 2011.
Getting data on the total revenue from the gala for just one year would take extensive research because officials would have to go through receipts and check bank records, Breidenstein said.
However, the city provided an estimate of what the gala made or lost for a few years prior to 2011. That estimate showed a profit of about $3,000 for 2008 and losses of between about $1,000 and $2,200 for 2007, 2009 and 2010. The amounts could be wrong, however, because some of the estimates might include revenue for other events because of the way the city kept the records, Breidenstein, said.
Proceeds in 2011 went to the historic preservation and heritage tourism fund, which supported historic properties such as the Spanish Quarter.
Based on heritage tourism financial statements, the city spent about $30,000 on capital improvements to historic buildings and structures in fiscal year 2011, according to Breidenstein. The heritage tourism fund was supported in part by the general fund in 2011.
Regan said commissioners have previously expressed concern about the costs of the gala.
Officials worked hard try to make it profitable and gain support for preservation projects, Regan said.
“It’s a very hard gala to do a good job in fundraising,” Regan said.
People stepped forward to rehabilitate the Flagler-era fountains in the city as a donation related to the gala. The city estimated the cost to restore the fountains would have been about $7,000 per fountain. The contractors came forward after the city announced plans to use gala proceeds to restore the fountains.
And while there is no direct link with the gala, the state of Florida has given more than more than $1 million for roof repairs to the Lightner building, Regan said. He said that’s in part because former state Rep. Ronald “Doc” Renuart saw the need for historic preservation when he attended the gala.
Joe Boles, who served as mayor for eight years until the end of 2014, said he did not recall that the gala was intended to be a fundraiser. The focus was on celebrating the city’s founder. Also, the city is not in the fundraising business, he said.
“I think that’s what it was for, was to have an event that could develop some community pride about our historical nature,” Boles said. “That’s why I think it’s always (been) a successful event.”
But former St. Augustine Commissioner Bill Leary, who lives in California, told The Record recently that he learned around the time when he was elected in 2010 that the gala had not been making money for historic preservation.
“Which it was being advertised to do,” he said. “And I was quite concerned about that.”
He told Regan about his concerns.
Leary said the tickets were expensive, above what the average resident could afford, and he said he was concerned taxpayer dollars were being spent for the benefit of the few. Leary said he wanted to cut costs so there would be a benefit to historic preservation. A lot of the money went to food and beverage costs, he said. He suggested the city put major expenses out to bid to reduce costs and increase the possibility of it actually making money for historic preservation.
Regan said commissioners’ concerns led to a push for more sponsorships to make the event profitable.
No signed agreement The city signed agreements with the Casa Monica that officials say covered the hotel hosting the Noche de Gala through 2014.
The Casa Monica also hosted the 2015 event, but no contract was signed for this year, said Tim Fleming, deputy director of general services.
Mayor Nancy Shaver said the city’s contracts with the Casa Monica were one of her concerns. She said she knew it had been promoted in the past few years as a benefit to the Lightner Museum. So she wanted to see a detailed listing of revenues and expenses for those years involving the Casa Monica contracts.
“And when I actually looked at both the contracts and asked if the true-up had been done, it had not been,” Shaver said.
Even without a contract, the Casa Monica could still use certain things including city streets, Burchfield said. The city works with other events to arrange for use of city right of ways.
The city’s contracts with the Casa Monica for the 2012 through 2014 galas say that the Casa Monica will gift all proceeds from the Noche de Gala to the city after all expenses are taken out. The funds would be used for repair and maintenance of the Lightner building, according to the agreement. But the city has not seen a profit since the Casa Monica Hotel began producing the event, Regan said.
However, the Lightner Museum did receive a profit from the event this year, said Robert Harper, director of the Lightner Museum. He initially said the museum received about $4,000 from the Casa Monica but later said the amount was about $6,000.
Shaver said she had not been told that the Lightner Museum had received funds from the Casa Monica this year from the gala, but she was happy to hear the event made a profit.
Regan said he hadn’t heard either, but he was also glad to hear it.
An invitation for the 2012 gala and an RSVP card for the 2014 gala said proceeds will subsidize the restoration of the Lightner Museum.
The museum is supported in part by admission fees and is separate from the city, Harper said. He said he could not recall a time other than this year when the event had made a profit for the museum.
The Lightner building and museum are separate. The entire Lightner building was left in trust to the city, Burchfield said, and it is overseen by a board.
The city occupies space in the building but doesn’t pay a fee, officials said. However, the city pays for maintenance and repairs (between $130,000 to $183,000 a year from 2011 to 2014) on part of the Lightner building, which is also City Hall.
So far this year, the city has spent more than $66,000 on repair and maintenance of City Hall.
The future
The future of the Noche de Gala is unclear.
Regan said it is his understanding that the Casa Monica is not interested in producing the gala anymore. Casa Monica officials did not comment on the issue.
Regan sent an email to Shaver in November, explaining some details about the gala and the Casa Monica.
“It was (sic) not worked well for the Casa Monica and I am pretty sure they would like to get out of it for 2016,” he wrote.
Regan said galas are hard to produce, with little or no return. He said he plans to bring up the future of the gala to the City Commission during budget talks, which are underway. The talks will likely focus on whether the city wants to produce the gala in a different form, or whether the city wants to outsource the event.
“We’re at an important decision point,” Regan said. “The last time we were at this decision point, the commission basically wanted to outsource the gala.”
Regan said he recommends that the city continue to find someone in the private sector to host the gala.
Commissioner Todd Neville, who was elected to the commission in 2014, said he has attended the event and has not considered the event to be a fundraiser.
“I’ve always viewed it as a celebration of our city’s history,” he said.
Neville said he would like to see the event continue, and he is in favor of outsourcing the event because that is not the kind of work city employees do on a daily basis.
Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline said the event was successful at “raising friends” for historic preservation.
“I would love to see it continue to happen,” she said.
Shaver said she thinks the gala’s future will be a question for the commission. The bigger policy question is whether the city is in the event-creation business, she said. Shaver said she believes if run properly, the Noche de Gala could be a great benefit to a nonprofit.
“Let’s look forward,” Shaver said. “It’s a great tradition. The city is not in the business of event management, so I’m really hopeful that other groups in the city will see the benefit of continuing it. We rarely get the chance to have a fundraising event that has the kind of heritage it does.”
Commissioner Leanna Freeman said the event celebrates Spanish history and has raised awareness among political representatives about the city’s need for historic preservation. She also pointed to the more than $1 million from the state for the Lightner building.
Freeman said if the Casa Monica doesn’t want to host the event, she wants to find a way to keep it going.
“But I would really hate to see it die,” Freeman said.
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