Santa Fe Springs separated contract approval from design decisions for its float

The decisions of several parties behind a single float

The City of Santa Fe Springs entered a float in the Rose Parade held in Pasadena, California, United States, on 1 January 2026. The organiser’s advance introduction explained that the design represented the city’s Heritage Park and railway history through local symbols including a locomotive, a garden and a fountain. In a statement carried by the Chamber of Commerce in September 2026, the city looked back on its participation.

Although the float appeared under one city’s name, its preparation involved more than one decision. The City Council addressed the contract and funding, the advisory committee offered views on the design, and the builder was authorised to apply to the external event on the city’s behalf. The published minutes and reports reveal what remained to be decided after the decision to proceed with the event.

The contract resolution separately recorded authority to apply for participation

The City Council minutes of 1 April 2025 record a resolution authorising a contract with Phoenix Decorating Company for Rose Parade services for 2026–2028, capped at $600,000. It was subject to approval by the city’s legal officer. The same resolution allocated $200,000 for the design, construction, storage and operation of the 2026 float. These figures are the contract ceiling and allocation, rather than final expenditure.

The same resolution separately authorised Phoenix to apply for participation in the parade in each of the three years on the city’s behalf. It identified responsibility for applying to the external event alongside the decisions to allocate funding and commission production. The record authorising an application on the city’s behalf must not be read as a record of the organiser approving participation.

The advisory committee’s vote was a recommendation to the City Council

At a special meeting of the Heritage Arts Advisory Committee on 17 June 2025, Phoenix presented three float designs. Committee members indicated their preferred design by a show of hands and agreed to recommend Design 1 to the City Council. The minutes explicitly state that the recommendation would be submitted to the Council on 1 July for approval.

Here, the advisory committee’s role was to gather views on how the city’s story should be expressed visually. A vote to establish preferences was distinct from the authority to make the final decision on the design to be built. Even after views had been gathered fully, the next decision still had its own decision-maker and subject.

There were separate decisions to make within the recommended design

The departmental report submitted to the City Council on 1 July 2025 recommended Design 1 while proposing that an element from another option be added. The proposal was to place the “Welcome to Santa Fe Springs” sign from Design 3 on the side of Design 1. It also conveyed the advisory committee’s view that approval of the mural to appear on the float should be deferred because a new design might be used.

The report asked the Council to select a design and identified the next step: Phoenix would begin building the frame after approval. What this establishes is the proposal from the department and advisory committee, the subject for which approval was requested, and the subsequent production plan. This agenda report alone cannot establish the final resolution or the confirmed outcome for an individual mural. It does, however, show specifically that the design was not treated as one finished whole: the components to adopt and the elements requiring further confirmation were discussed separately.

Authority was explained by the subject of the decision rather than by job title

What matters in this record is the difference between the questions each party addressed, rather than the number of approval stages. The Council’s decisions about money and the contract did not replace the advisory committee’s selection of imagery. The committee’s recommendation was passed to the Council as an item requiring a choice. Nor did the builder’s authority to submit an application on the city’s behalf replace the external organiser’s decision.

One organisation may make several decisions. In this case, the Council appears as the decision-maker for two different subjects: funding and design. Putting names on an organisation chart is therefore not enough. The preparation team needs to know who may offer views on what and who may decide what before it can determine the next work to undertake.

Other events can examine the effects of a changed decision

This distinction is useful for other events. If a sponsor requests a change to the way something is expressed in a production item, for example, reviewing that request, approving the additional cost and confirming matters again with an external organiser may be separate tasks. The person responsible needs to consider not only who made the request, but whether the change concerns the design, the contract amount or the conditions of external participation.

Dividing approval subjects into smaller parts does not automatically make work faster. If interdependent changes are decided separately, a design may be finalised while production conditions still need to be reviewed. What is needed is a way to explain the people whose views must be gathered, the people who will decide and the work affected by that decision, rather than a structure that sends everything to a new committee. There is no reason to transfer a US city’s Council procedures or financial thresholds directly to an event in Korea.

Conclusion

Santa Fe Springs recorded contract approval, advice on the design, the design choice requested of the Council and the builder’s application on the city’s behalf as separate tasks. The planning principle this case offers is to explain, for each decision, whose views must be heard, whose decision is needed and what work can then begin, rather than placing all stakeholders in a single approval sequence. The public record demonstrates a distinction between roles, but it does not establish that this structure reduced production costs or shortened the schedule.

Conditions for applying this to another event

• Use this as a reference for events in which several organisations share responsibility for costs, expression and external participation conditions.
• Do not transfer US City Council procedures or financial thresholds into general rules for events in Korea.

Information not verified

• The agenda report of 1 July 2025 was not used to establish the final resolution or the confirmed outcome of the mural.
• Final expenditure, individual participation approval documents, inspection results, and the procedure’s effects on costs and scheduling were not verified.
• Applications to other events and the explanation of the authority structure are the editorial team’s analysis. No field reporting or external expert review was undertaken.

Sources

• City of Santa Fe Springs Council materials, minutes of 1 April 2025 (included in the 6 May 2025 agenda packet, pages 24–25)
• Heritage Arts Advisory Committee, special meeting minutes of 17 June 2025 (page 2)
• City of Santa Fe Springs, float design selection report of 1 July 2025 (pages 93–95)
• Tournament of Roses, advance introduction to the 2026 float (published on 4 December 2025)
• City of Santa Fe Springs, statement carried by the Chamber of Commerce looking back on 2026 participation and announcing plans for 2027 (24 September 2026)