In the interest of full disclosure, I worked with Castillo and he attended my wedding. But his gift sucked and he’s a Raider fan, so it really isn’t that big a deal.
Downtowns have always held a special place in the American psyche. And with the success of retailers like Costco and Walmart, there’s been a denunciation of big box and chain stores and a renaissance focused on keeping downtowns prosperous or rehabilitating struggling city centers.
In Marin, the process is more severe, as politicians, business leaders and residents vie for the perfect combination of a downtown that’s resident-serving, environmentally viable and economically sustainable. It also helps if it’s pedestrian-friendly, warm and fuzzy. And if there’s free parking right in front of the boutique where you want to shop, that would be pretty OK, too.
A business improvement district, or BID, is an entity in which member businesses agree to pay a fee that goes toward an improvement of the business environment in a specific geographic area. And as the New Year dawns, local BIDs are very much in play.
The city of San Rafael is restructuring its fee schedule for its Downtown Business Improvement District to give some stores a break. The Novato city council has told merchants who’ve been unhappy with its BID that there aren’t enough of the pissed off retailers to shut the district down.
When it comes to approaches to BIDs, it really is a tale of two cities. At this writing, a few days before Thanksgiving, San Rafael’s city council is looking at reducing fees for service providers as well as some retail outlets and eateries (those making less than $100,000 in the so-called premium area) as well as retailers and restaurants in the “standard” area also taking home less than $100,000 per year.
The fee reduction comes after the council expanded the BID from 125 businesses to 700 last year, by expanding the area considered to be downtown, in an effort to beef up the cash flow into the BID coffers. The expansion wasn’t greeted with drumming circles and choruses of “Kumbaya.”
In an interesting turn, the city jacked up the amount that banks and financial institutions pay each year from $175 or $225, depending on location, up to $375 or $425.
While downtown San Rafael is regarded as a place with tough traffic (true) and tough parking (false, if you want parking that’s really tough, go to San Francisco), one of the real issues gathering the attention of merchants is the number of homeless in the downtown area.
The city has struggled with this very difficult issue for a while, and it’s unrealistic to expect the BID to have an impact on it.
Further north, the New Year brings a renewed interest in an old problem. The BID in Novato has been under fire for the last few years after some merchants found fault with how the district operated, citing conflicts of interest, self-dealing and questionable budgeting. A formal protest in 2013 led by downtown merchants Carlos Castillo and Steve Jordan fell short of the required votes from member merchants to disband the district. To disband the district, a total of 51 percent of the total assessment for the district’s members would have to lodge protests. But the city disallowed 14 percent of the protest ballots and, thus, the protest total came to just 38 percent.
In the interest of full disclosure, I worked with Castillo at a national news service and he attended my wedding. But his gift sucked and he’s a Raider fan, so it really isn’t that big a deal.
What is a big deal is how things may play out next. At a November council meeting, Castillo accused the city of spending time sitting on its “butt” rather than investigating the rejected protests. Castillo’s language offended Councilwoman Jeanne MacLeamy, who warned him to watch his mouth.
Trust me; Castillo’s capable of expressing himself in a much more colorful fashion. If MacLeamy’s sensibilities were really bruised, she should buckle up—it could get much bumpier.
There are some things connected to the protests that do make the city look lazy. In 2013, the city took about an hour at a city council meeting to total up the protests. This year, it took a week for the same task. The staff report regarding this year’s protest wasn’t available until a few hours before the meeting, rather than the week before the meeting. And Castillo and Jordan had to ask the city for details of the disallowed protests. These items by themselves make it appear like the city’s concern about a transparent process was pretty far down the list of stuff to get right.
In the end, the city council voted 4-0 to assess BID fees for 2015, with members of the council acknowledging that, while some members still weren’t happy with the BID, things were better than they were in 2013 and that district leadership was trying harder.
Color Castillo and Jordan unimpressed and pissed off. They’re considering legal action and have a pro-bono lawyer on retainer. A lawyer willing to donate his time is hardly an encouraging sign for those at City Hall. In an email to NorthBay biz, Castillo mentioned that perhaps the most efficient way of getting at problems downtown was to become more politically active and “get the vote out.” Councilmembers Eric Lucan, Madeline Kellner and the aforementioned MacLeamy are up for reelection in 2015.
