Cape Coral City Council, sitting as the South Cape Community Redevelopment Agency commission, approved sponsorship requests for six events totaling nearly $30,000 Wednesday.

Events to receive funds include the Holiday Festival of Lights, put on by the Chamber of Commerce, Dec. 7, for $5,000; Holiday Boat A Long, put on by Cape Coral Parks & Recreation, Dec. 21, for $5,000; New Year’s Eve Ball Drop, put on by Cape Coral Parks & Recreation, Dec. 31, for $5,000; 40th annual Cape Coral Art Festival and Market Place, put on by Rotary Club of Cape Coral and Cape Coral Rotary Foundation, Jan. 11 and Jan. 12, for $5,000; seventh annual Chili Cook Off, put on by SWFL Charities Foundation, Inc, Feb. 16, for $4,225 and seventh annual Pride Cape Coral, put on by Pride Cape Coral, Inc., March 1- March 3, for $5,000.

Richard Carr voted against all non-city events. Keith Long, Dan Sheppard and Carr voted against the grant for the seventh annual Pride Cape Coral.

“I support the city-sponsored events and no others. I just think it is difficult under the criteria to assess the need — it is subjective,” Carr said. “The city-sponsored, I will be in their support.”

Chair Bill Steinke said although they need to have more city events, when he thinks about the funding and what it takes to fund a city event; an outside organization is probably exponentially higher.

“For us to turn a blind eye on the outside organizations that want to bring popularity and attendance to our city for our business to our CRA, I think would be a mistake to dissuade those people coming to the area,” he said.

The CRA board traditionally has two rounds of applications for special event scholarships with a total of $60,000 available in the budget.

With Wednesday’s approval, it depleted the funds for the second round of applications, which historically include Red White & BOOM! for $5,000, Concert in the Park for $5,000 and Cape Coral Touch-A-Truck for $1,600. The budget would have to be amended for additional funding.

There was a discussion around the required volunteer hours for the grant, as there was one organization that had not yet met that requirement. Special Events Coordinator Todd King said they have to meet the hours within a year of the event being held.

“What do we do with the hours if exceeded their commitment. I don’t know how we mitigate that or work through that,” King said.

City Manager Mike Ilczyszyn, who serves as the CRA’s executive director, said it is inappropriate to have an organization out of business to assign those hours to a successor of that event.

The Chili Cook-off was initially run by Invest in America Veterans Foundation.

“We love to see organizations move forward and keep them moving forward,” he said, adding that the last thing he would hate to see happening is penalizing the organization that took over. “I will address staff. When an organization hits 100%, it is complete — stop tracking hours. Anything over and above is an act of volunteerism.”

Ilczyszyn said the new board will have to decide if they want volunteer hours a part of the policy and if so, they will have to amend the actual procedure for application.

Denise Wood, of SWFL Charities Foundation, said they took over the Chili Cook-off last year. She said they were asked to join the CRA to help promote, so they continued the event. Last year the event attracted about 2,000 people and had 18 restaurant vendors and 17 individual vendors.

The organization is giving an effort to pay back those hours, leaving them at 42 hours left to fulfill.

“The group is committed to that capital volunteer repayment,” King said.

A motion was made to approve the $5,000 once the 42 hours is met before February, which the council approved.

“I will personally help them reach that goal of 42 hours before their event in February,” Robert Welsh said.

John Gunter voted yes for all the agenda items — on the prevailing side — so he can bring them back at the next meeting to give the new CRA board an opportunity to have a discussion on the items if they so choose.

The Nov. 5 Cape Coral City Council election will bring five new members to Council and so the CRA commission.