Karen,
I would rather receive your criticism than another's approbation.
I don't have an ultimate answer to the "free-rider question" at this
time. But clearly it is central to the judging of any SSD/NID/BID operation.
What I've learned so far is that different neighborhoods differ wildly
in their valuation of different concerns. Shortly after you posted, I
was talking with Cicely Peterman-Mangum of Mt. Airy USA. She was curious
about BID news in our part of town. I told her the 4-unit rental cutoff,
the exemption for homeowners and petty landlords, that has caused so
much controversy in University City, is actually less than the 5-unit
cutoff for the new Mt. Airy BID, which didn't lead her constituents to
bat an eyelid. Mt. Airy did bat a lot of eyelids in the course of
swallowing its BID proposal -- but not over that issue.
I do accept this issue matters in this neighborhood. What this
neighborhood in turn must accept, though, is that its particular
concerns are not universal, but parochial. This issue may ring like a
gong on UC-list without resonating citywide.
Yet the nature of SSD/BID/NIDs is that they can be tailor-cut to their
communities. There is no mold they must be forced into, for statutory or
economic reasons.
-- Tony West
KAREN ALLEN wrote:
From: Anthony West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [UC] BID and the Public Record
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:14:14 -0400
Well ... I have to say it happens all the time, that people receive
government benefits without paying equally into the system. Just
about every tax you can name exempts some classes of citizen from
paying it. They still get the benefits, if benefits there are.
...
So obsessing over whether somebody, somewhere might be getting a
benefit they didn't pay for seems like a fruitless way to worry about
our neighborhood. -- Tony West
Tony, Im going to have to jump in and strenuously disagree with your
point above. I happen to agree with Dan, as he has captured in a
nutshell my opposition to the BID: "Why" some (landlords) are being
assessed while others (homeowners) are not. "Why" homeowners, who
would benefit greatly, are being courted to "support" a service they
don't have to pay for, while landlords are being demonized as cheap
greedy slumlords for not wanting to pay the freight.
My answer to the question "Why" is that the powers-that-wanna-be know
that the idea would go down in flames if it were to be proposed across
the board. Therefore it's easier to use a divide and conquer strategy
to get the homeowners on board with the promise of a free service, and
then hold the landlords up for derision for not going along with the
demand that they pay their supposed "fair share". The other part of
"Why" is who would control the decision-making process of the BID: if
the entire neighborhood were to be taxed, homeowners would be in the
majority, and would therefore be in control; if it were just
landlords, the large corporate landlords and/or other people with
business interests with Penn would control it.
So I am VERY concerned about "why" some are being asked to pay and
others are not, and my conceern is based on a knowledge of the
workings of the real world, not on an obsession.
Karen Allen
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