If the function of the BID is to provide services that overlap those already provided by the city, then it doesn't seem logical to create a new bureaucracy and overhead to administer services already provided by the city.
If the BID is going to employ street cleaners, and the city employs street cleaners, then it seems like the tax money that would go to the BID could just as easily go to the city without a second administration.
Residents and businesses of Asheville can already make their desires known to city staff. These desires will not find a faster fruition otherwise. The BID is inefficient.
— Jon King
Asheville
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Jon, the premise of your comment is incorrect. For something to be redundant it must already be being done by another entity.
The primary purpose of the BID is to improve cleanliness. It will be accomplished by doing things that the city doesn’t do. For example, several years ago the city stopped ever power washing the sidewalks. Most who have looked in to it believe that is unacceptable in the densest, most heavily walked part of the city. Some bid funds would remedy that shortcoming.
Indy,
As you said, “the city stopped ever power washing sidewalks”. I’d venture to say that this was stopped due to expenses.
The City already has the overhead in place to manage the labor for sidewalk washing, and virtually every other task that would like to be accomplished by a BID.
JK
The city specifically does not have the budget to perform the tasks identified in the BID. To do those things, the city would either need to drop other services or raise taxes citywide, neither of which they are going to do. The city is not going to become magically more efficient and get these things done, either.
The argument that the city “could, should or would” do these tasks is just a red herring. They’ve been very clear that there is no $ in the budget to perform these incremental tasks.
The City could easily accomplish the tasks in the BID proposal if they also had the tax revenues of same proposal.
My point is that the management overhead of the labor to accomplish the tasks of the BID proposal already exists in the City government.
Doubling that overhead is wasteful.
The overhead in the bid proposal consists of all of 1 person and a part time office person, so it is minimal.
The BID may choose to purchase some services from the city to meet their objectives, if a deal could be struck.
The city doesn’t have the $ to accomplish the desired task which is the point of a BID. Were the city to want to provide this higher standard of service, presumably they would have done so.