Dear Councilors,
We at PINAC, as well as many of the business owners and constituents we have spoken to oppose the BID for the following reasons:
--The panhandling ordinance--Though the panhandling
ordinance has been tabled indefinitely and removed in name from the BID package, the BID plan still includes the language of the ordinance,
identifies "increased panhandling" as
a problem and still contains the intent of spending about half ($25,000) of its $55,100 public safety budget on private security or offduty cops
to drive away Northampton's homeless and panhandling. The BID actually began as
a response to some businessowners' discomfort with the presence of the poor. Dan Yacuzo,
leading BID proponent, has vowed to bring the panhandling issue up again, despite the fact
that this piece of classist legislation was met with overwhelming community disapproval."
--Implications in the proposal that could lead to abuse of low income
people's civil and human rights: the proposal strongly implies
it will use a free labor pool of the homeless to supplement
CLEAN team labor under the guise of "training" and
"social service"; it provides for funds for private security or
off-duty cops with little constitutional restraint or oversight
--private security esp. has a history of these abuses--
patroling the streets for business interests and not in the interests of
the public, likely to selectively pursue the crimes of
"unmarketable" people like the homeless (and even if the city donates
a police officer as an in-kind contribution, that police officer would
still be working for the BID, not the city), it attempts to create a culture of
snitches and informants in Northampton--both the CLEAN Team & "tour guides" planted
through the city are instructed to be extra "eyes and ears", again, likely
to point out the crimes of the poor, not the crimes of tourists
or businessowners themselves; and, in a time of reduced funding for social services,
the BID would have court-ordered community service participants and
work-release prisoners would be employed cleaning for businesses as
opposed to true community service such as working for a shelter or serving
for a soup kitchen.
--BIDs have been routinely racist and classist. Here are a few egregious
examples: In New York, NY, in 1995, the Grand Central Partership was
accused of using "goon squads" of untrained, formerly homeless men to
forcibly remove homeless individuals from the BID. It was revealed that
these workers were being paid only $1.15 an hour for their services. In
New York city again, in 1997, Mayor Giuliani found it necessary to
advise the Madison Avenue BID's security department to rescind
the distribution of a flier advising the BID's businesses to close and
secure valuable merchandise on the day of the Puerto-Rican Day Parade.
In altimore,MD :"To change negative perceptions developed among area employees, consumers and visitors, the Baltimore Downtown Partnership
hired 'Safety Guides' to discourage crime by curtailing the presence of the homeless."
(What right do businesses have to roust poor people from public space?)"... The Downtown Partnership
has been working with the Baltimore Gas and Electricity Company and the city to install
surveillance cameras along the commercial streets of the BID"---is it really to our benefit
to be surveilled by business interests in our public space? (Quotations all from Business
Improvement Districts: Issues In Alternative Local Service Provisions, by Mildred Warner,
James Quazi, Brooks More, Ezra Cattan, Scott Bellen and Kerim Odekon, June 2002, Cornell University)
--The BID would privatize public space. Public space plays a vital role in democracy,
as a site of free speech, association, and protest. Urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg
writes that the downtown, with its bars, coffee shops and public spaces, constitutes
an important "third place," different from the first and second places of home and work.
These third places are central to the health of local democracy and community, giving
us respite from the rule of the marketplace in a space where we can interact with each
other. When the policing of a district and its maintenance are based on profit-driven concerns
rather than the need to create and maintain noncommercial space where people assemble,
it's difficult to use public space the way it was intended. There's been substantial attention to
the manner in which BIDs globally have often attempted to rid the spaces they control of the
homeless, ethnic minorities, and political activists who might frighten off shoppers. Yet, public
space is there to accomodate the right of the people to assemble, and the city's streets are
not a country club. You should not have to be the "right" race or in the "right" income bracket
in order to walk them.
--The power that the BID has over public space seems well nigh unlimited.
Massachusetts General Law, in chapter 40 O, discussing BIDs, gives BIDs
the power to sue, incur indebtedness, enter into contracts, acquire real property,
design, engineer, and construct urban streetscapes, manage parking, and
"administer and manage central and neighborhood business districts." The last
clause, in its vague, abstract language, is the most frightening, since it could
encompass almost anything.
--The BID is not subject to oversight and does not operate based on democratic principles.
The BID will be making the big decisions the law gives it authority over behind closed doors.
MA law does not require the private BID board of directors to have open meetings, or compel
them to follow other public provisions that encourage citizen participation and institutional transparency.
So, the BID will be making city government decisions without the benefit of voter-elected decisionmakers.
--In a time of economic depression, the BID proposes to heighten recessionary effects.
Property taxes under the BID will go up by 43%, and thus business and residential
rents will rise as well, and prices will go up downtown as businesses struggle to pay
their rents. The BID proponents will tell you that the BID is voluntary because assenters
can opt out after 30 days---first of all, there is no way to measure the economic success
of a project after a mere 30 days. Secondly, the BID will affect all of us, whether we are
property owners or businesses who opt in or not, by making downtown more expensive
in general.) These effects will further gentrification in Northampton's already solidly
gentrified downtown, forcing low income people out. It will also destroy small
independent businesses that make up part of the core of Northampton's reputation
for arts and culture, since these businesses don't have a big profit margin and will
not be able to afford the rise in property taxes and rent, leaving mostly only
homogenizing corporate chain businesses behind. The BID is designed to be
attractive to tourists, so mainly only hotels, restaurants and gift shops will
benefit, while small local businesses that rely on a more local customer base
will just see a spike in property tax or rent with no additional revenue. The housing
market in Northampton is already suffering from such
high mortgages that homes simply won't sell--this will merely
exacerbate the situation. 27& of the area the BID was zoned into
in Northampton is urban residential, and BIDs are only supposed to
be formed in an areas that which are at least 3/4 zoned for commercial,
industrial, and mixed use because BIDs put a devastating finacial burden on residential areas.
--The BID is illegitimate---it does not actually meet the provisions
required in MA law for council to vote for its adoption. First off, the
entire process has been skewed in favor of BID supporters--the city
charged BID opponents for Planning Department staff time and information, while
serving BID proponents for free. The city hasn't scrutinized the 300 plus
signatures for the BID with any care, though it has done so when considering
other controversial petitions. To quote someone from the assesor's office, "I just
checked to make sure there was a signature." If they had examined the signatures,
they would have discovered that 90 or more of the 300 or so assents creating the
61% agreement needing to create the BID by law were the signatures of residential
property owners, who are excluded from the BID by law. If these signatures were
subtracted from the total, you'd have only about 30% assent, 31% less than is needed.
Also, Smith was belatedly gerrymandered into the accounting of the area in which
51% of total assesed value has to opt into the BID for its adoption to be considered--thus,
95%, or $135 million dollars, of that 51% is made up of Smith, a non-profit institution.Not only
is that illegal, leaving Northampton vulnerable to a lawsuit brought by angry anti-BID property
owners, it also amply demonstrates that most businessses are not proponents of the BID,
and that the BID would put control over important municipal decisions into the hands
of a small elite of business and property owners.
--Once approved by the Council, we will not be easily rid of the BID. The dissolution
of the BID calls for the vote of 51% of the district's assesed value. Even if such a vote
was made, a BID that still owes debt must remain intact--other BIDs across the country
have actually intentionally incurred debt as a safeguard against being dissolved! Those who
opt into the BID will be locked into the contract in perpetuity unless they opt out after 30 days.
Even then, they will still be dramatically affected by the BID indirectly.
--No actual objective quantitative evidence concerning Northampton's economy was marshalled
in support of this plan. All proponents have done is vaguely point to increased panhandling (or the
increased perception of panhandling) , vacant storefronts, and graffiti to claim Main St is in decline.
Big property owners who started out here in the 70s when the area was depressed are running
scared because of the economic crisis, in fear that downtown will regress back to that state.
They're reaching for a solution that sounds economically proactive, hoping they can pressure
the city to run with it based on anecdotal evidence. Yet, their plan will actually heighten the
recession here. And downtown can't regress back to what it was---30 or 40 years ago it wasn't
known as it is today as a center for arts and the queer community.
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