Lincoln aldermen take the plunge with Dock Dogs

[April 09, 2018] 

LINCOLN 

At the Monday, April 2nd meeting of the Lincoln City Council aldermen agreed to provide $4,000 to assist in the financing to bring a new event to the annual Pigs & Swigs Festival to be held the first weekend in June.

Dock Dogs is a very popular event for dog owners and their pets, which includes a variety of competitions where the dogs dive into a pool of water. The competitions include retrieving what is thrown into the pool with distance measured for their jumps into the pool. There are also competition for “big air” and more.

The idea was brought to the Pigs & Swigs Committee by Chris Graue, who is one of the founding committeemen for the Up in Smoke Barbecue competition a part of Pigs and Swigs. Graue visited the Lincoln City Council in March with videos and handouts. He explained that he had seen the competition on ESPN on a Sunday morning and found it interesting. He saw it as a third component of the Pigs & Swigs that would be very family oriented, appealing to kids as well as adults.

Within the Dock Dogs program there are “professional” dogs who travel all around the country to be in the competition, but there are also competitions for novice dogs. That category will allow for local pet owners to bring their dogs and allow them to get their feet wet in a new kind of activity.

Graue had explained that the Pigs & Swigs organization will have to pay $6,500 to the Dock Dogs organization to get them to come to Lincoln. He asked that the city provide $4,000 and said that he had other businesses and organizations that were interested in sponsoring the event, and those groups would be providing the balance of the cash needed.

Within the dollar amount being provided to Dock Dogs, will be money that organization will use to publicize the event around the country. Pigs & Swigs will also do regional advertising for the event, and recently received a grant from the Logan County Tourism Bureau for that regional advertising.

Last Monday evening the motion was made to approve the request for $4,000 and discussion fol9owed. During that time, Rick Hoefle said that he fully supported the idea of the Dock Dogs coming to Lincoln, but he was hesitant to give the committee the money considering the city was currently planning to impose new higher sewer bills on the constituents. He said that if he could be assured that the money for Dock Dogs was coming from the Hotel/Motel Tax instead of from taxpayer funding, he would then support the motion.

The city collects hotel/motel tax from all the motels within the Lincoln city limits. From the total collection, 85 percent is given to the Logan County Tourism Bureau. The balance remains with the city for the support of local tourism activities. Currently, the primary expense coming out of the city’s share of the H/M Tax is funding for the Third Friday Downtown Lincoln events.

Michelle Bauer said she thought that taking the $4,000 from the H/M Tax was the right thing to do, but then said she wanted to go a step further. She said that the city should be supporting other events from the H/M Tax instead of from the general fund, for example the Railsplitter Festival held in the fall each year. She also said she didn’t feel like the H/M Tax should be supporting the Third Friday events because those evenings did not promote tourism in Lincoln, they were for the local folks.

The city is currently in the process of finalizing the budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Treasurer Chuck Conzo was asked if the funding for Railpslitter and Dock Dogs could be moved to the Hotel/Motel Tax line and could Third Friday’s be moved out of the H/M Tax line. Conzo said that he would work on that.

From the gallery, Wanda Lee Rohlfs said she wanted to know if the city was going to provide the water to fill the large portable pool used for Doc Dogs. Alderwoman Heidi Browne said that Illinois American Water has temporary meters that can be placed on fire hydrants in the city. A meter could be obtained and used to meter the water needed to fill the pool, then Dock Dogs could be given a bill for that water.

With those questions satisfied, the vote was taken. The motion passed with a 7-0-1 vote. Bauer abstained from the vote because she is on the Pigs & Swigs Committee on the Swigs side, and felt casting a vote would be a conflict of interest.

[Nila Smith]

Past Related Article

Pigs & Swigs and new attraction – Dock Dogs get support of Tourism Bureau

To learn more about Dock Dogs visit their website and this video:

Website: https://dockdogs.com/ 

2015 DockDogs Promotion Video FINAL – 10 minute 32 second video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpiRgWhWh28 

Still shots
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ 0B6Eq7hFZlPOVeVhva0hzY2dkNlU