Explanation
This ordinance authorizes the City Clerk to enter into a grant agreement with the Columbus African Festival in support of the 2024 event.
The Columbus African Festival is a bold, yet comprehensive approach to cultural reconversion and reconstruction within the African Diaspora in Central Ohio. It is grounded in the fact that many festivals which take place in the African communities are either singular or dual-focused (film, performing art, fine art., etc.). The Columbus African Festival as a theoretical and conceptual framework seeks to take a renaissance approach to art and various forms of artistic expression. In this context, art is not just art for art’s sake, but is the creative cultural production of a people’s common history, common lifestyles, and their common and collective aspiration for a higher form of life and humanity.
Building on the notion that 2011-2021 is the UN-sanctioned, International Decade for People of African Descent, the Columbus African Festival will showcase the breadth and expansiveness of African and Diasporan creative productive capacity with an emphasis on sustainability. This year’s festival will take place between July 26-28 in Genoa Park.
Fiscal Impact: Funding is available within the Neighborhood Initiatives subfund.
Emergency action is requested in order to provide the Columbus African Festival with the resources necessary to execute the event in July.
Title
To authorize the Clerk to enter into a grant agreement with the Columbus African Festival in support of the 2024 event; to authorize an appropriation and expenditure in the Neighborhood Initiatives subfund; and to declare an emergency. ($50,000.00)
Body
WHEREAS, the Columbus African Festival is a bold, yet comprehensive approach to cultural reconversion and reconstruction within the African Diaspora in Central Ohio; and
WHEREAS, the Columbus African Festival seeks to take a renaissance approach to art and various forms of artistic expression; and
WHEREAS, this year’s festival will take place between July 26-28 in Genoa Park; and
WHEREAS, an emergency exists in the usual daily business of the City Clerk in that it is immediately necessary to authorize the Clerk to enter into a grant agreement to provide the Columbus African Festival with the resources necessary to execute the event in July, all for the immediate preservation of the public health, peace, property, safety and welfare; and NOW, THEREFORE
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS:
SECTION 1. That the City Clerk is hereby authorized to enter into a grant agreement with the Columbus African Festival in support of the 2024 event.
SECTION 2: That the City Auditor is hereby authorized and directed to appropriate $50,000.00 in the Neighborhood Initiatives subfund, fund 1000, subfund 100018, to Columbus City Council per the accounting codes in the attachment to this ordinance.
SECTION 3: That for the purpose authorized in Section 1 of this ordinance, the expenditure of $50,000.00, or so much thereof as is necessary, is hereby authorized in the Neighborhood Initiatives subfund per the accounting codes in the attachment to this ordinance.
SECTION 4: That the City Auditor is authorized to make any accounting changes to revise the funding source for all contracts or contract modifications associated with this legislation.
SECTION 5. That for the reasons stated in the preamble hereto, which is hereby made a part hereof, this ordinance is hereby declared to be an emergency measure and shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage and approval by the Mayor, or ten days after passage if the Mayor neither approves nor vetoes the same.