Community groups demand more transparency from street festival organizers

Five Northwest Side community groups are demanding various street festivals in their neighborhoods be more transparent and open with financial information.

Organizers with the Bucktown Community Organization, Chicago Grand Neighbors Association, East Village Association, Wicker Park Committee and Ukrainian Village Neighborhood Association, formed a coalition and submitted a letter to festival organizers asking that they open their books.

Our Urban Times, a northwest Chicago community newspaper shared the community groups’ main requests:

• Complete transparency of festival financial statements. Including a detailed breakout of sponsorships, vendors, beer sales, grants, expenses & donations (at minimum, for the prior two years).

• Inclusion of neighborhood groups in each festival’s logistics, safety & police plans in a timely fashion so they can have input and inform residents of what to expect.

• Understanding that profits vary by fest, we would like more consistency between fests in our neighborhoods regarding the portion of proceeds that go to community beneficiaries.

• If the festival decides to take donations, they must post signage explaining how the donation will be used. (Chicago law states that you can’t charge admission to the public way) This should include an established percentage of the gate to be donated to the identified nonprofit, excluding festival organizers.

• Each festival takes the responsibility to make sure any community organizations or non-profits receiving funds [or donations] are legitimate and are using proceeds as stated to go back into the neighborhood on a timely basis”

Neal McKnight, president of the East Village Association, told Our Urban Times that the coalition hopes their alderman will eventually require festival chambers to release this type of information.