Hi, Guy. I find all this negativism annoying too, especially when it is accompanied by a complete lack of practical thinking.
I think your idea is great, and thinking about it with some good business heads could be very beneficial for University City Remember, though, about the proposed NID: it was intended to extend UCD's current services (let's call them "John Fenton" as a kind of discussion shorthand). The original "John Fenton" was to continue being funded by UCD's current major backers -- Penn, Drexel, large real estate firms. If we are talking about a service entity that does roughly what UCD does, it's going to cost something like what UCD now costs. That cost is currently derived from millions of dollars from major donors. So let us be terribly clear: Do you envision a CID that would seek to retain these millions of dollars? Or do you seek one that will deliberately avoid them? If the latter, who else will we hit up around here to replace those lost funds, and how? A special services district is a kind of business. It needs a business plan. We need to begin with a business plan, rather than with all this community-input chat. Because if you begin with the community-input chat, what we're likely to wind up with is a whole lot of community input into nothing. -- Tony West ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; UnivCity@list.purple.com Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 11:32 AM Subject: Re: [UC] which bad thing? Thanks for getting back. My name is Guy Laren. I have been disappointed by all of the negative energy on the Listserv lately by both groups of people who have one seemingly unifying goal and passion-- a love of UC. I thought that my proposal to create this NID (or my proposed "CID") by funding it the same way that Penn had proposed (the model already exists in someone's archives). If I remember exactly the amount that would be raised was less than $1,5 million per year. I believe that we could get commitments for that amount by going to the very people who would have been taxed by the NID and then get people who are currently contributing to the UCD and get close to that figure in a very short time (might have to borrow some of it on peoples' promise to pay). Then we would have our CID/NID/BID, but it would be run by the community. I see this type of entity as a community based one from the start. I like to use the anaylogy of colonial times, because it is where many of our models for this community/village stuff started. If there were a threat in a colonial village the leaders would find a way to get the Villagers to commit to enhanced patrols. I'm sure they would do the same for health issues. In UC's case we have the City providing for heath and security, but it is inadequate. Shouldn't the community run their own supplemental services? It sounds daunting, but one of the special aspects of our community is the surplus of intelligent and committed residents. Guy Laren ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ See what's free at AOL.com.
