PORTSMOUTH — After concerns were raised at a public meeting about the tens of thousands of dollars the city spent on this year’s Hampton Roads Black Tie Gala event, City Council members announced a new formula for sponsoring future events. We would like to formulate guidelines.
The second annual gala was held on September 23rd at the Portsmouth Renaissance Hotel and was attended by approximately 700 people. The gala is a fundraiser with NBA player and Portsmouth native Dorian Finney-Smith, who runs the Finney-Smith Foundation, a nonprofit that hosts free youth basketball camps and food drives in Hampton Roads. are doing. The event also raised funds for three local nonprofit organizations: Friends of Portsmouth Juvenile Court, Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture, and the Greater Peninsula CARES Foundation.
Portsmouth donated $70,000 to host this year’s event, according to records obtained by The Virginian-Pilot through a Freedom of Information Act request. Interim City Manager Mimi Terry announced that the city would spend $30,000 to cover travel and speaking expenses for the event’s keynote speaker, TD Jakes, a nationally recognized faith and business leader from Dallas. and authorized $40,000 to be spent on Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture. The nonprofit organization that hosted the event.
Last year, Finney-Smith hosted the inaugural event in Norfolk with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban as a guest speaker. According to financial records provided by the city of Norfolk, the city paid the Finney-Smith Foundation $5,000 that year, enough to cover a platinum-level sponsorship.
Erin Carter, who organized the event on behalf of the Finney Foundation and the Hampton Roads 757 Black Tie Gala Group, said the city of Norfolk is only a table sponsor for the 2022 event, and Portsmouth is the event’s presenting/presenting sponsor. He told the pilot that he was the title sponsor. This year’s gala.
Tickets for the event are $150 per person and VIP admission is $350. Organizers say the gala aims to “bring potential investors to (Finney-Smith’s) hometown” to address issues related to food insecurity, health care disparities and the school-to-prison pipeline. He said it was a way to raise awareness.
“I was born and raised here, and now I have the opportunity to use my influence to improve society by building relationships that will attract the attention of business leaders like Bishop Jakes. I’m honored to be able to do this,” Finney-Smith said. A news release announcing an event.
The city of Portsmouth’s financial sponsorship of the gala was addressed at the Sept. 12 meeting, with City Councilor Bill Moody asking for input on establishing guidelines the city could use to decide which events to sponsor. Ta. City leaders said there are no guidelines other than a $100,000 cap on how much the city manager can spend without City Council approval.
“I don’t think we need to be an organization that decides, ‘We’re going to sponsor this event or that event,'” Moody said at the meeting. “What I’m saying is we need to be fair and impartial and we need to have some standards for what events we sponsor.”
City Councilman Mark Whitaker agreed, noting that decisions like these regarding funding requests are arbitrary without policy.
At that meeting, Mayor Shannon Glover said she had no problem creating guidelines, but that Terry has discretionary authority as interim city manager to spend up to $100,000 on city projects without council approval. , also said that lawmakers should trust her with such decisions.
“It’s comforting to know that there are guidelines when making these decisions,” Moody said.
Terry said during the meeting that there are currently no guidelines in place, but that when a larger funding request is made, he typically emails Congress to ask what to do next. But she added that she never got a response.
A Sept. 11 email obtained by The Pilot shows that Mr. Moody asked Mr. Terry to clarify public claims that $60,000 had been spent to bring Mr. Jakes to the event. It shows what you asked for. Terry responded to council members via email with records of the $30,000 paid to TDJ Enterprises LLP, saying the city’s support helped offset the cost of the event. However, the email did not include information about his $40,000 donation to Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture to sponsor the event.
Deputy Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke told the Pilot that it seemed necessary to establish a formal policy. She said lowering the cap from $100,000 could be an option, but councilors don’t want to “tie the city manager’s hands” to manage such a request. He added that it would be.
But Lucas Burke said concerns had not been raised about other city-sponsored events until this one honoring African American leaders.
Portsmouth isn’t the only Hampton Roads city taking a closer look at festival sponsorship. Virginia Beach elected leaders are also considering reviewing sponsorship protocols for events and festivals after considering the economic impact of some large events.
Terry told the Pilot this week that the celebration, which she and about a dozen city officials and their guests attended, was a great event with positive press coverage for Portsmouth. She pointed out that a recently released documentary titled “From Portsmouth to Brooklyn: Dorian Finney-Smith’s NBA Journey” includes scenes shot throughout the city. After playing at Virginia Tech and the University of Florida, Finney-Smith signed with the Dallas Mavericks as an undrafted free agent in 2016 and re-signed in 2019. He is currently a forward for the Brooklyn Nets.
The event was a partnership between Finney-Smith, the City of Portsmouth, Sentara Healthcare, Dominion Energy and Virginia Natural Gas, according to a news release about the event. Organizers said Jakes’ visit included a city-led tour of potential investment sites across Portsmouth. Also at the gala, Finney-Smith launched the new Dorian Finney-Smith Foundation, which will focus on supporting the Portsmouth community.
The Finney family told the Pilot this week that the foundation had no role in the finances, as Carter was in charge of this year’s event on behalf of the Hampton Roads 757 Black Tie Gala organization and the Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture Group. He said he informed the pilot via email. Memorandum of Partnership.
Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com