A BID, business improvement district, is a public-private partnership in whch businesses in a defined area create a contract to pay an additional in order to take on certain powers as a group, and fund projects in the district's public realm and trading environment. The Northampton BID's goals, for example, include marketing the area, financing "public improvement", maintenance and security services, special events, and amenities like holiday lighting. BIDs began as a concept in the 1970s and 80s as federal, state, and municipal budgets were cut, and businesses in city neighborhoods decided to fund many city services themselves.

 

An appropriate analogy for a BID is a mall. In fact, the idea of the BID was originally modeled on malls. Malls are single properties managed by one entity that rents out retail space to tenants, and those tenants pay a common maintenance fee to pay for services that enhance the appearance of the mall's common areas and provide cooperative advertising for the mall and its various stores. BIDs operate economically in much the same way.

 

The first issue many progressives have with BIDs is how they bring about the privatizing of 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.

 

 For example, one huge problem we point to is the hiring of private security--rent-a-cops or off-duty police--to patrol downtown. Besides private security's long history of  civil and human rights abuses---despite the fact that in theory private security is restrained in the same way police departments are by people's Fourth Amendment rights, in practice they have much less oversight than police departments do---the mall analogy works well here to explain another pressing problem with the BID's use of private security: Mall cops are concerned with how your presence affects shopping, not whether you've truly broken the law or not. And mall security is usually selective about whom it chooses to pursue--a well-off tourist on a coke-fueled shopping spree, laden with shopping bags from different stores, won't be touched, but a homeless man loaded up on Thunderbird to keep warm will be thrown out of the premises, if not turned over to the police for disorderly conduct and public intoxication. This is usually true even if both individuals are equally disruptive.

 

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 to use another, more telling commercial analogy, 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. BIDs have been routinely racist and classist. I'll list a few of the most egregious examples:

 

--The Grand Central Partnership, in  New York, NY: In 1995, the 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.
 
--The Madison Avenue Business Improvement District in New York, NY: 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.
 
--The Baltimore Downtown Partnership. Baltimore, in  MD :"To change negative perceptions developed among area employees, consumers and visitors, the BDP 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)

Another concern about business control of public space and maintenance services that should be the responsibility of the municipal government is that it unjustly creates two classes of businesses, the haves and the have-nots. Those businesses, usually small and independent businesses, which can't afford the 40% increase in property tax the BID will entail and opt out of it will still be paying for it through taxes on their business and often, taxes as residents. (The city will be paying $35,000 to start for the BID, and a projected $85,000 every year after that. Also, since the city, although it is not a business, has signed on to the BID and will commit to a Memorandum of Understanding between it and the BID, it will also be obligated to pay more in the form of numerous, mostly unspecified "in kind" contributions: So far, the city has committed to purchasing, maintaining, fueling, and storing equipment (including a pricey "Tennant" sidewalk sweeper); committing $50,000 annually to the Academy of Music; providing free billing and collection services; picking up the tab for trash disposal; implementing a host of capital improvements in the future; and more.) But because they've opted out of the BID, they won't receive basic city services that the BID will now be running--so Starbucks might get the sidewalk in front of it swept, but Roz's Place might not, even though they're paying for the BID through their taxes.

 

Finally, 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.

 

Another indication of the the basically undemocratic nature of the BID--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.

 

For an example of the kind of accountability to constituents and  the economic wisdom we can expect from the BID, look to Hospital Hill, to paraphrase the Advocate. Dan Yacuzo, former owner of the East Side Grill, and several other key BID players also sit on the Citizen's Advisory Committee that overseeing development on the construction of a new community on the grounds of the old state mental hospital. $22 million in taxpayer's money has poured into the project, but little of the plans for it have come to fruition.  Many important decisions about the project have been made without any oversight by the voters who are paying for it. For example, when the CAC decided that Kollmorgen, a defense industry company, was allowed to use some of the new village's space, Joe Blumenthal, CAC member and BID advocate, said there'd be time for public input later. At this date, months later, the public still has not been allowed to give any input.

 

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.