Megan Navarro
DRIPPING SPRINGS — Dripping Springs City Council approved a policy at its Tuesday, April 7, meeting that would govern political candidate and political party participation, signage and speech activities during the 2026 Founders Day Festival.
This follows discussions amongst the Founders Day Committee on the allocation of vendor booths to political parties and candidates because of increased demand, but limited supply, leading city staff to do a legal review and draft a policy.
The purpose of the policy is to deal with the severely limited vendor booth space and demand from political candidates, in particular, said city attorney Aniz Alani, as that heavily outnumbers the spaces the city can accommodate. He noted that this year, there are approximately 23 applicants on the waiting list for vendor booths.
“Historically, there have been some political type [of], we’ll call them, vendors, using the vendor booths, but this year, for whatever reason, there are just more than supply allows,” he said. “So, the goals of this policy are to provide an orderly way of having clear rules and ultimately, having a fair allocation that distributes the limited event space in a neutral manner.”
This policy is limited solely to the 2026 Founders Day Festival and is not intended to carve in stone a policy for anything after this year’s event, Alani emphasized. However, council could request that staff look into extending or creating a policy that applies to other or future festivals.
It applies to vendor booths, political expression during the parade by approved and registered participants and conduct by city officials and representatives attending in an official capacity.
The policy proposes a limit on political expression vendor booths to no more than two booths, exclusively to qualified political party organizations — this means that no booths would be approved for any individual political candidates, political action committees, ideological advocacy groups, etc., said Alani.
“Essentially, the idea is that you can’t commandeer a political party’s booth to functionally be a candidate booth, but political candidates can participate, obviously, with the political party’s consent as part of their political booth,” he explained.
If more than two qualified political party organizations apply, available political expression booth spaces shall be allocated by lottery conducted by the city after the application deadline. However, that is a “moot point,” said Alani, as the deadline has already passed and there were not more than two applications.
Additionally, the application deadline has also passed for the parade, Alani said. He noted that only the candidates and parties who are registered would be allowed to engage in political expression in the parade.
As for the individuals who are attending the festival in an official capacity — such as city council members or elected leaders in other levels of government — there is an on and off toggle switch. This is for acting in an official capacity or as a private citizen.
“The way the policy is written, you are acting in an official capacity when you are representing the city and basically, you are using your position as an elected official or city official to have some enhanced platform that private citizens don’t have. That might be marching as part of a more official delegation in front of the parade … wearing official insignia,” Alani said. “At all other times, those folks are acting as a private citizen and they can do kind of as they would as any other private citizen can under the festival rules.”
Council member Sherrie Parks questioned if it is necessary for the city to move forward with this policy for this year, since the deadlines have passed for booth and parade applications.
“My understanding is because there are essentially one [or] two political candidates who have applied and would be registered in the parade and no one has told us that they would be wanting to attend in an official capacity in the parade. Strictly speaking, no, and that assumes that no one shows up or tries to insert themselves in an official capacity at the parade,” Alani responded.
The city attorney added that if someone were to try to insert themselves in an official capacity at the parade, the city could refer to the policy, saying they can not campaign in an official capacity because council approved such policy or appeal to their sense of common decency.
There are rules in place that registration and attending the parade meetings is required in order to participate, Parks said: “So, if some official last minute decided to call and say, ‘I want to be in the parade,’ based on those two things, they should be denied.”
Another council member, Geoffrey Tahuahua, agreed that the festival is coming up soon and the existing policy does give some reasonable wiggle room.
He shared that he has attended Founders Day consistently for the last four years and has worn campaign shirts, participating in political expression, while also being asked questions related to his official duties as a city council member. However, he noted his concern of changing the rules less than 20 days out.
“There needs to be a larger look overall at how we handle the processes and yes, maybe political is a part of that in some extent, but it’s maybe 8% or 10% of the conversation. Whereas, I really do think the bigger issue is how we look at it overall because I can tell you today, I don’t think vendor booths in general are being assigned fairly,” Tahuahua stated.
Mayor Bill Foulds asked for clarification if a council member wearing a city of Dripping Springs logo in violation. It is in violation, only if they are doing so while campaigning, Alani responded.
Further along in the discussion, council member Travis Crow shared that it feels like a lot to consider for one meeting and that this should have been on the agenda four or five months ago.
“To do this right, I don’t want to put a Band-Aid on it; instead of missing out on some information ... have the [Founders Day] Committee look at it, report back to us, give us recommendations and we go from there,” Crow said. “This is a lot, I think, for us to process on the dais tonight.”
The Founders Day Committee has looked at this draft policy twice and provided recommendations, the mayor clarified, but Crow said that he would have liked to have had the chance for council to provide its own feedback, as well.
It’s a good idea to figure out a standard way to address the limited number of booths that are available, council member Taline Manassian said, while also acknowledging that there could be an argument made to let Founders Day be a community event to take some steps to “depoliticize the activity there.”
Ultimately, council voted 4-1, with Tahuahua dissenting, to approve the policy.
The full discussion of the meeting can be found at the city of Dripping Springs’ YouTube page at www.youtube.com/@cityofdrippingsprings9597.
