City approves HOT funds for Come and Take It, Cattle Country

The Gonzales City Council made two votes regarding distribution of Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) funds on Thursday, March 13 — giving $30,000 to the Oct. 3-5 Come and Take It Celebration Committee and $75,000 to the Cattle Country Fest, which will be held April 10-12.

Originally, the Come and Take It Celebration had sought $80,000, which would include an additional $40,000 to help fund an extra day of the festival on Oct. 2 that would also serve as a de facto Gonzales bicentennial celebration. After meeting with the Gonzales Convention & Visitors Bureau board, the committee lowered its ask to $60,000 and made its case to the council.

Finance Director Laura Zella told the council the HOT fund balance as of the meeting date was about $466,000 and the city had outstanding approved disbursements of just under $345,700, which would leave a balance of $120,306.93 before considering requests by Come and Take It and Cattle Country Fest.

“If you fund Come and Take It tonight for 60,000 and fund Cattle Country Fest (for $75,000), that would put the Hotel-Motel bank account in the negative,” Zella said. “But, then if you consider the Hotel-Motel tax revenue that's going to come in for the quarter ending March 31 and then ending June 30 and Sept. 30, with those average quarterly amounts, they would put the bank account ending at $264,655, so that's the estimated fund balance.”

Come and Take It

Gonzales Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture board member Allison Davis, who also is on the Come and Take It Celebration Committee, asked the council to consider fully funding the request for $60,000

“Come and Take It was started in the 1950s here in Gonzales, simply as a fundraiser for the Chamber of Commerce, and it started with just a parade,” Davis said of the annual event. “We've grown so far since then, and you all have enabled that through your continued funding, year after year.

“Our request has gone back before the CVB board, and we are pleased to see that they've reworked it. We understood the need for that, and we're thankful they were able to accommodate us with that request, and they've divided out nicely the $60,000 into different line items to hopefully fund this Come and Take It.”

Davis said the committee’s focus this year is the Gonzales bicentennial and “\we want to advertise, Come and Take It as part of the bicentennial celebration for Gonzales and it'll probably be one of our larger events,” she said.

She added the Chamber has hired an attorney to mke sure all non-profit statuses for the Chamber of Commerce and Come and Take It are up to date and correct and they expect full confirmation of “everything that has been in question to be certified within the next 4-6 weeks. We just want to put that to rest.”

City Council members had expressed concern after it was discovered the Chamber’s IRS 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) non-profit designations had not been maintained since 2016.

District 4 Councilmember Ronda Miller said the city had given $120,000 combined in HOT funds to the festival during the past five years. She noted the city also will give more than $21,500 of in-kind services to the festival and that the council had voted earlier to end its pact with the Chamber to host the city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau and tourism functions.

“Since we're moving tourism back (under the city), we’ll be working on the bicentennial and we're gonna need that bicentennial money for our city staff tourism coordinators,” Miller said.

Miller made a motion to only give the festival committee $30,000 “contingent upon the official written proof that their 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) statuses are supplied to the city manager and each one of the council members in writing.”

The motion was approved by a 4-0 vote by Miller, Mayor Steve Sucher, District 2 Councilmember Mariah Jordan and District 3 Councilmember Lorenzo Hernandez. District 1 Councilmember Joseph “Poochy” Kridler was absent due to an impending medical procedure.

The vote by the council means the festival will only have funding for its regular scheduled dates of Oct. 3-5.

Come and Take It Commitee Chair Daisy Scheske Freeman said after the meeting the committee is “sincerely grateful for the $30,000 in funding from Hotel/ Motel tax, even though it is a reduction from our original request of $80,000—which included $40,000 like we received last year and an additional $40,000 from bicentennial funds.”

“The Come and Take It Celebration has a remarkable $1.2 million economic impact on our community every year, supporting numerous local nonprofits that provide scholarships and fund projects to enhance the quality of life in Gonzales,” Scheske Freeman said. “Last year alone, the celebration generated significant revenue of $97,816 for nonprofits, with additional off-site fundraisers contributing to local causes. This historic event and hometown tradition not only unites our community but also reinvests in the people and organizations that make Gonzales thrive.”

Cattle Country Fest

Initially, Cattle Country Fest organizer Marcus Federman had sought $150,000 in HOT funds for help in promoting and marketing the 2025 festival, which has attracted big names like Parker McCollum, Nickelback, Clint Black, Tanya Tucker, Clay Walker and others to perform at the three-day festival. However, after meeting with the CVB, the request was lowered to $75,000. Last year, Federman received $40,000 in HOT funds from the city.

“It’s mainly for marketing. We spend a lot of time and energy and money promoting Gonzales, so (the HOT funds are) just really helping us, you know, progress as a business,” Federman said. “We spend quite a bit on advertising between all of our digital ads, radio, billboard — all that stuff.”

Asked by Miller if the funds would be used for 2025 or for 2026, Federman said he planned to reimburse himself for some of his expenses from this year and then place the rest into marketing for 2026. He noted that Cattle Country had “integrated the (Gonzales) Bicentennial into our marketing.”

“It's been in press releases and posters that we put up, different types of language that we put up in the marketing in the Facebook comments, or Facebook posts, Instagram posts, etc. We've been using it as a as a tool — another talking point, so to speak,” Federman said,

Hernandez asked if Federman would produce banners to place around the city and was told posters had been printed at Coastal (former Reese Printing) in Gonzales for upcoming distribution.

“There will be signage going up here pretty soon,” Federman said. “About 50 percent of our budget happens in the last 30 days, so we go really, really big in the last 30 days. We have a bunch of radio that's about to hit, a billboard, a bunch of print stuff, banners and posters, and they're going to go everywhere.

“I've spent a lot of money. I'm going to be frank,” Federman said when asked by Hernandez why he was essentially doubling his request.

“We have to look at our money, too, and we have to see if we generate enough sales tax to try to recoup some of it,” Hernandez said.

“From what I was told, April last year (when the festival was held) was, I think, the highest sales tax month (for April) in the history of the county,” Federman replied.

Councilmembers discussed possibly waiting to fund Federman’s request until after the festival took place so they could see the impact it has on sales tax and HOT funds, but were reminded that data wouldn’t be available until sometime in the summer.

Gonzales Economic Development Corporation executive director Susan Sankey told the council

her organization was very glad to have Cattle Country Fest as an event in Gonzales and that what the city does to help events that bring people to the community does matter and is vital.

“Some of that promoting and advertising does come very, very brief prior to the event, also leading up to the event, but in those few short weeks ahead of it is really a critical time for promoting it, just because people look for that right before the event,” Sankey said.

She said the quality of entertainment being put together for the festival is a testament to it being named one of the 15 best festivals to attend in 2025, which is putting Gonzales on a national stage.

The council then voted 4-0 to approve the full $75,000 for the event.