The battle for the hearts, minds and marketing dollars of downtown businesses in Novato goes on, as members of the Downtown Novato Business Association (DNBA) seek to freeze funding for the Business Improvement District.
How $56,000 per year gets spent on marketing is at the center of the scrap, with the city relying upon the DNBA board of directors to serve as its advisory committee for the improvement district. Roughly about 400 downtown merchants are currently required to kick in between $65 and $525 per year, depending on the size of the business, with the dollars flowing to the DNBA to market downtown as a destination shopping and dining area.
But last November, a dissident group of merchants, led by Carlos Castillo and Steve Jordan, began making noise about just how cash was getting spent by the DNBA. They questioned why the nonprofit was spending better than 20 percent of its budget on the maintenance of the DNBA website and why that contract was awarded to Solvatech, a Novato online development company, which had an employee on the DNBA marketing committee. They also questioned why the contract was never bid in the first place. Castillo and Jordan collected 144 signatures last year, calling for the city to look into how things were being done and for a freeze on the fund collection.
In the interest of total disclosure, I once wrote at the same publication as Castillo and I still consider him a friend, in spite of his allegiance to the Oakland Raiders. I couldn’t pick the Creekside Bakery’s Jordan out of a police lineup.
Castillo tired of journalism and went in search of honest work, opening the bookstore The Loveable Rogue. But he just can’t help digging. “We gave the city 144 signatures out of 153 surveys returned last November, calling for a freeze on the funding process. And they blew us off,” he said from his Grant Avenue shop. “We asked for one more week to bring them the majority of the businesses in the downtown area. Instead, the council voted 5-0 to go ahead with the 2014 assessment.”
So Castillo and Jordan are out gathering signatures again, hoping this time to force the city council’s hand. Should they collect signatures from more than half the downtown merchants on a petition calling for changes, the city would have to discontinue the assessment, according to regulations.
While the city council did OK the 2014 assessment, it’s clear the council, as well as downtown businesses, know not all is well. The DNBA board has been replaced with all new faces and the website contract for $12,000 per year has been discontinued in favor of having an intern do the work for $250 per month.
Another complaint from Castillo and Jordan was that the DNBA financials weren’t made public, giving the businesses a better chance to understand where the money was going. New DNBA president, Mark Dawson of Giant Properties, says the DNBA has put its budget on its website to promote transparency and that the new board is reaching out to downtown businesses to better understand what their concerns are.
That may not be good enough for Castillo, Jordan and others feeling slighted by the DNBA. “We aren’t going away. We would like to see the city do an audit for the past money spent by the DNBA,” says Castillo. “We’d also like to simply have the collection for the DBNA be an opt-in situation. If a business agrees with how things are going and wants to contribute, it can check a box and do that. But it shouldn’t be automatic.”
Dawson says he didn’t know about opting in or out. “I can’t speak to it, but this is how business improvement districts are done. Besides that, what can a business do to promote itself for just $158 per year?”
Your Marin moment
Usually this is the spot in the column where I bring you a news item that points out some of the eccentricities of life in these parts. But not this time.
This month I beg your indulgence and ask for your help. The Powell-Porrata family of West Marin are in the midst of a tragedy that few of us can honestly imagine. On Feb. 9, 43-year-old Roneil Powell died in his sleep of a massive heart attack at the family’s Inverness home. His untimely death came just two days after his 4-year-old son, Ezequiel, came home from his first round of chemotherapy.
Ezequiel has stage-four cancer, embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma to be precise. The soft tissue tumor is malignant and, according to news reports, has metastasized to his lungs and spine from his pelvis.
Roneil, who worked at DriveSavers in Novato, is survived by Ezequiel, his 6-year-old daughter, Yolanda, and his wife, Alex Porrata.
Having a child face rounds of chemo away from home to stem the rush of a malignant tumor is horrible enough without imagining the family left to face that challenge without Roneil, the family’s breadwinner.
So, this month, I abandon my sharp observations in the hope that you’ll join me in trying to do something important for a family I don’t know and you likely don’t, either. Donations benefiting the Powell-Porrata family can be made at www.ezpowell.org or at any Wells Fargo branch. The federal taxpayer code for the fund is 46-4722983 and the name of the fund is Roneil Powell Memorial Fund. Should you donate, please note that your kindness is a gift donation.
I am donating my fee for writing this column to the fund, I hope you will consider such a gesture as well.
Thank you for reading this and for caring.
